The Spatula Test
by Cerberus Revised
Summary: Hiroki's mother has finally figured out a way to find out what is really going on in the life of her closemouthed son. Will Hiroki come out of the closet or just end up going deeper in? Rated "T". All JR Three JR couples appear. This was my first multi-chapter FF and I'm still proud of it. Lots of laughs and lots of feels. FINISHED.
1. Chapter 1: Preparations

**6/3/2012 **

**Dear Readers, I know that this story has been up for a bit. I am glad you found it. It is kind of a staying in/coming out sort of story. Alternating angst, humor, romance, drama… well a bit of everything really. I hope you enjoy it and even if you don't, please consider reviewing it. I always love to hear from you and appreciate the opportunity to learn and improve in regard to my stories.**

**Sincerely,**

**Cerberus**

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><p><strong>Summary:<strong>

Hiroki's mother has figured out a way to find out what is really going on in the life of her closemouthed son. Will Hiroki come out of the closet or only end up going further in?

This story emerged from an old joke that someone told me and I thought it would be amusing to see it put into play with this couple and their situation.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Junjou Romantica or any of its characters.**

**Rated: T or PG-13  
><strong>

**Contains: Mild language, mild violence and adult situations**

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><p><strong>The Spatula Test<strong>

**Chapter One: Preparations  
><strong>

Nowaki watched as Hiro-san nervously fluffed and then straightened and then fluffed his thick auburn hair again while looking at himself in the hallway mirror. He'd been doing this off and on for the last fifteen minutes. Nowaki thought it was just too cute, but as much as he wanted to say something he didn't. Hiro-san had been adamant about having him practice his restraint all week.

Hiroki turned when he noticed the big goof watching him over his shoulder, biting his lip. He knew that his boyfriend was fighting not to tell him how adorable he looked. The anxious blush on Hiroki's face deepened. While Nowaki had been able to curb his verbal commentary, at least in part, Hiroki had no idea what he was going to do to tone down the blatant look of affection in the tall man's eyes.

He had a bad feeling about this whole situation. Instead of articulating his anxiety however, he snapped.

"Don't just stand there like an idiot! You're sure that everything is okay. We haven't forgotten anything?"

"No Hiro-sa… Hiroki." Nowaki had caught himself just in time. It seemed so foreign to be using his lover's first name. He remembered a time when he had desperately wished for his lovely professor to allow him to address him as such, but now he only wanted to be able to return to his dear "Hiro-san" as soon as possible. "Everything is perfect."

Nowaki gestured with one of his long arms sweeping the room. The apartment was immaculate; even all Hiro-san's books were neatly stacked. There was an elaborate flower arrangement on the kitchen table he'd brought home from the florist shop where he was still moonlighting and he had made sure to prepare everything so that when he cooked dinner tonight the meal would be seamless.

"And your room? You made sure you didn't leave anything incriminating out? Nothing embarrassing?" Concern furrowed Hiroki's lovely brows.

"Like what Hiro-sa…Hiroki?" Nowaki asked innocently.

Hiroki ground his teeth. "You know, you big dork!"

"I'm sure I don't." Nowaki replied his blue eyes guileless. Though actually he did, he just thought Hiro-san's shyness was so sweet he could not help but be just a little bit wicked.

Hiroki could barely bring himself to say the words out loud. "We talked about this before. You know…" his abnormally quiet voice slipped even lower. "Lube, toys, that ridiculous maid costume you bought me for Valentine's Day, that you refused to burn like I told you to."

"Oh, those things." Nowaki's face lit up in a beatific smile. "Of course Hiro-san, I tucked all those things away. I am sure that your mother will never find them."

Hiroki was so relieved that he didn't even scold Nowaki for slipping with his name.

"I am so delighted that your mother is coming to stay with us for a whole week," Nowaki went on cheerfully. "I have been wanting to meet her for so long. She always sounds so nice when we speak on the phone."

"Hrrumph," Hiroki growled. "Well that makes one of us whose happy she's visiting." He went back to nervously mussing his hair.

The lady Kamijou had been waiting for years for an invitation to see her son in his professional life, but Hiroki had successfully been able to keep her at bay until today. Now that all of her friend's children were married and many bouncing grandchildren joyfully on their knees, Hiroki's mother had decided finally that she could stand their gloating faces no longer. She had determined she must see her only son's life for herself and figure out what she could do, as a concerned parent, to help him find his way down what seemed to be for him an elusive path to marriage and a family of his own.

She had informed Hiroki a week ago that she was coming on a rare trip, to do some shopping with friends, and that she wanted to not only see, but also to stay with him while she was there.

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><p>"Surely you'd be more comfortable in a hotel," Hiroki had suggested, his stomach already clenching in a terrible fit of nerves at her announcement. "It's also a really busy part of the semester for me, I am not sure I will be able to spend much time with you." Usually the lady Kamijou would have simply agreed and withdrawn from the conversation, but today she was determined.<p>

"Of course," his mother sighed, "I am sure all of my friends will understand why my only son is so busy that he cannot see his own mother. I am positive they will not interpret my staying with them in the hotel, while you have a perfectly good apartment that I have never seen, as odd." She went on her voice sadly resigned. "I know that they will not think that my dear son is ashamed of me. That he is so cold as to deny an old lady of the joy of seeing her successful only child." Following such words, Mrs. Kamijou's reluctant son was given no choice but to relent.

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><p>After this disastrous conversation, Hiroki had originally discussed having Nowaki stay with his Senpai, Tsumori, while his mother was visiting (as much as he hated the idea) but the look of sadness on Nowaki's face had been just as guilt-provoking as his mother's words. And he could still picture the radiant happiness in Nowaki's eyes when Hiroki had finally allowed that he could stay, as long as he adhered to some basic rules.<p>

Besides he figured that his lover would be gone most of the week at the hospital or with his various jobs, so that the interaction between Nowaki and his mother would be minimized. Of course, however, with his luck; Nowaki had just been given a four-day furlough.

Yes, Hiroki had a very bad feeling about this indeed.

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading and please review.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2: A Two Pronged Assault

**The Spatula Test**

**Chapter Two: A Two Pronged Assault**

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><p>There was still twenty minutes to go before it would be time to leave to meet Hiroki's mother at the train station. Nowaki, having never known his real parents was ecstatic that he was going to finally have a chance to meet at least one of Hiro-san's. His partner talked so infrequently about his family or his childhood and he hoped that meeting Hiro-san's mother might eventually provide him with another key for unlocking his lover's heart.<p>

With this thought, he could no longer help himself. Nowaki stepped up behind his still fussing Hiro-san and wrapped himself around the man's lean frame.

"Idiot!" Hiroki yelled as he struggled, trying to extricate himself. "What the hell are you doing?"Nowaki, however, was impervious to his professor's mad thrashings.

"We still have some time before we have to go," he breathed in Hiroki's ear. His tongue slipped out and traced its delicate edge. "Please Hiro-san?"

Hiroki felt his body responding to the closeness of his lover and Nowaki's tongue was electric. Still, he wriggled furiously, attempting to get away.

"No!" he yelled. "Get off me you big pervert! I can barely walk as it is after what you did to me last night! You should have already gotten enough action to carry you at least through the whole week! And what am I supposed to say when my mother asks me why I am limping?"

"Tell her you're under a Dr.'s care for your condition," Nowaki purred. One of his large hands slipped down finding its way under the waistband of Hiroki's slacks.

"Stop, dumb-ass…" Hiroki started, but then his cell phone rang. He managed to pry himself free long enough from his giant's grasp to pick up.

"Hello?" He answered it without looking at the number. His heart raced with hope. Maybe his mother had taken ill… maybe she missed the train… maybe the train derailed… Instead he heard an altogether too familiar voice on the other end of the line.

"Kam-i-jou, my sweet honey, I need you," Professor Miyagi crooned.

Hiroki fumed. Somehow the man managed to make him feel dirty without even touching him.

"No!" he snarled. "I refuse whatever it is you're going to ask. I have an urgent family matter to attend to and I have cancelled my classes today. So I will not be coming anywhere near campus."

"Nowaki!" Hiroki hissed, trying to cover the phone. Nowaki had reclaimed his earlier position only this time his hand had found its way under the band of his briefs as well. The feeling of Nowaki's warm touch on his bare skin, as always, was maddening.

Hiroki had tried to keep his voice low enough so that Miyagi wouldn't hear him. Unfortunately, where any sort of hanky-panky was concerned, the senior professor's senses were particularly acute.

"Oh ho!" Miyagi cried. "Kamijou, an urgent family matter you say? Tsssk, I thought you were more professional than that. Honestly, playing hooky from your class to wallow in abandon with your giant!"

"It's not like that at all!" Hiroki protested. "My mother is arriving today!" The poor professor was overwhelmed by this two pronged attack: Nowaki's prong now pressing insistently against his beleaguered backside as the tall man leaned into him, slowly maneuvering Hiroki's body up against the mirror.

"Leash your demon lover, Kamijou and get your sweet ass down here! We have to get those curriculum revisions in by two or the Dean will have our testicles with his afternoon tea." Miyagi's voice now held a definite tone of annoyance.

"Oh, is that all you need?" Hiroki breathed a sigh of relief. "I finished those yesterday and put them on your desk before I left."

"They're not here," came Miyagi's heavy response.

"What?" Hiroki was having a hard time focusing, Nowaki's mouth was grazing the back of his neck while his hand grazed…

"Look, I started cleaning the office yesterday after you left and things were getting a little disorganized in the process to begin with… and then there was an accident… and somehow everything on my desk ended up on the floor." Miyagi sounded uncommonly flustered.

"How in the hell did that happen?" Hiroki had to bite his lip immediately after posing the question to stifle a groan; Nowaki's hand had found him and had encircled his obvious arousal.

"Well a big wind came in through the window…"

"Liar!" Hiroki barked, grateful for the focus his outrage brought with it. "The window in our office doesn't even open! If it did, I would not be forced to suffocate everyday beneath the clouds of your cigarette smoke! It was you and that damned brat again wasn't it? Using our office for your disgusting trysts. Talk about unprofessional!"

Thankfully the force of his anger brought both Hiroki's agitators to a halt. Miyagi was silent a moment and Nowaki regretfully released one of his favorite parts of Hiro-san.

Miyagi never one to dwell in shame said sheepishly, "Kamijou, I need you to come help me find the revisions, it won't take long I promise."

"Damn the you and your helplessness!" Hiroki swore, but as an assistant professor he could not afford to have the Dean notice him negatively. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes." He snapped his phone off in the midst of Miyagi's exultations of thanks.

"And you!" he turned to face the huge horn-dog who had wisely stepped back a few feet away from his raging boyfriend. There was so much Hiroki wanted to shout at Nowaki in this moment. If only his books had not been so neatly stacked (usually in their disarray they were so much more easily accessible) his boyfriend would have collapsed under a barrage of literary missiles.

Hiroki was shaking. He balled his long academic fingers into tight fists and closed his eyes. His cheeks flashed a brilliant scarlet.

"You…" he said through gritted teeth, abandoning the long lines of curse words that arranged themselves with a poet's precision on his tongue. " You… are going to have to go by yourself… to pick up my mother."

Hiroki grabbed his coat and bag from their hooks by the door. He slammed his feet into his shoes and stomped out of the apartment, leaving a stunned Nowaki behind him.

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading and please review.<strong>


	3. Chapter 3: A Picture is Worth

**Chapter Three: A Picture is Worth…**

Nowaki stood waiting at the appointed place for Hiro-san's mother at the train station. Hiro-san had texted him not long ago to say that he had called his mother and had alerted her to the change in plan. Even amidst the crowds on the busy platform, Nowaki was still able to pick out the lady Kamijou immediately. He knew her from the picture Hiro-san had shown him.

Nowaki found himself thinking briefly about how strange it was that his boyfriend kept so few family pictures. Hiro-san had just one of his mother and father in a small frame that was normally kept on a bookshelf in Nowaki's unused bedroom. The older man had grudgingly moved it recently out into their main room for his mother's visit. Other than that, the professor had one small album he kept in a drawer of his desk, and that one loose picture of he and Akihiko as children he kept tucked in one of the author's novels.

Nowaki didn't understand it. If he'd had a family, he would have had every wall plastered with images. As it was, he currently had over three hundred pictures of Hiro-san in various stages of perturbation on his cell phone.

The older man always got so annoyed when he wanted to take a photo of him, but to Nowaki every moment he got to spend with his boyfriend was worthy of commemoration. Nowaki sighed, and a rare frown flitted across his handsome face. He wondered if Hiro-san had even a single picture of him on his phone.

Even without a picture to go by, however, Nowaki would have probably recognized the lady Kamijou anyway, she was lovely and he could so clearly see the resemblance between mother and son. Though Nowaki never thought of his boyfriend in anything other than masculine terms, he could see the slight delicacy of his lover's body reflected in the woman's slender frame. They shared the same large hazel eyes, and (though he rarely saw Hiro-san's), the same smile.

Nowaki smiled and stepped forward to greet Mrs. Kamijou, who also seemed to recognize the young doctor immediately. "Ah, Kusama-san," she breathed happily as they exchanged bows "So nice to finally meet you."

"And you, Kamijou-san." Nowaki beamed. He reached out to take her bags from her. He thought Hiro-san's mother looked quite sharp in her smart traveling suit. She seemed a far cry from the traditional woman his boyfriend had described. "But how did you recognize me?" The dark-haired youth asked, perplexed.

"Oh, well," she fluttered, "my Hiroki-kun said you were very tall. And then, he sent me this just a bit ago when he said he couldn't make it so I would be sure not to miss you." She fumbled with her cell phone and a picture Nowaki had never seen appeared. It was a beautiful snapshot Hiroki had surreptitiously taken of his boyfriend in profile, his handsome face obviously unconscious of the camera, his eyes looking off in the distance with a slightly dreamy countenance, yet simultaneously glinting with the sparkle of intelligence and humor.

Had Hiroki thought long enough to consider that his mother might actually show Nowaki the picture, he would certainly have never sent it. Nowaki's knowing that Hiroki had secretly been photographically stalking him would have been way too embarrassing.

To be honest, Hiroki had quite a few pictures of his lover on his phone, all taken when the tall man wasn't aware. While the number of images was nowhere near the amount that Nowaki had, the professor had certainly amassed far more pics than he was comfortable with. Every time Hiroki took a new snap he would promise, cursing, to delete a previous image, but the older man could just never seem to bring himself to do it.

Hiroki's mother marveled at how her son's roommate lit up seeing the picture. Kusama-san had the smile of an angel. "Hiro-sa, I mean Hiroki sent you that?" The tall man asked incredulously. Nowaki was practically radiant.

As they left the station, chatting lightly, Nowaki easily carrying Mrs. Kamijou's bags, the youth's glow did not diminish and Hiroki's mother was warmed by it. She could already see why her son might like to have someone like this around. He was so animated, such a difference from Hiroki-kun's other primary friend, the tragic, expressionless, Akihiko.

The lady Kamijou was also soon keenly aware that she was not the only one drawn to Nowaki's energy. It seemed almost every woman they passed noticed him, though the man himself seemed blissfully unaware of the attention.

Surely, Mrs. Kamijou thought to herself, with such a handsome roommate, it should not be difficult for Hiroki-kun to find a date. She acknowledged that while her own son was not lacking in good looks, that his temperament at times left something to be desired. Still, she could only imagine that with women fluttering like moths around the flame of Kusama-san, surely there must be those who would gravitate to Hiroki-kun's darker glow.

Her desire to solve the mystery of her son's singleness increased.

**X X X X X X X X X X**


	4. Chapter 4: Fly on the Wall

**Chapter Four: Fly on the Wall**

Hiroki hated being late and with the exception of his morning class (should Nowaki cease trying to get him up before the twenty-sixth time), he rarely was.

Right now however, he was very late.

It was not simply his present tardiness that was currently incensing him; it was the fact that the event he was overdue for was taking place within his own apartment. That he had been now been standing at the door of said apartment for the last twenty minutes, trying to work up the nerve to go in, only compounded his agitation.

Standing here on the threshold of his residence, Hiroki knew how he must appear to anyone who might happen by. He had seen this exact same posture everyday, affected by many of his students as they stood waiting to enter his classroom or office.

It was not that he was scared (his pride would not allow any such admission), but every time he went to turn the key in the lock, Hiroki's chest would suddenly catch and his eyes begin to involuntarily water. He had not felt this way for years: since he was a child, overwhelmed by his myriad lessons.

When he was younger and felt this way, he would run away to his secret place of blue sky and green branches to find solace. Hiroki was startled to realize that in his present life, this is what Nowaki, the big idiot, had become to him. He cursed himself for having such a particularly poetic thought, such was the danger of living in literature, but it was true and right now his refuge was in their apartment with his mother.

Standing outside in the chill of the early spring, it also dawned on the professor that one of the reasons he had kept his life separate from his family was that he did not wish to share his sanctuary with anyone else: he had as a child, allowing Akihiko in, and this had only led to heartache.

"This is all that damn Miyagi's fault!" Hiroki thought, purposely rearranging his scowl, lest his brow get a cramp from holding the same expression of fury for too long.

**X X X X X X X X X**

Hiroki had burst on to campus that afternoon carried by the residual wrath stemming from his earlier assault by the two idiots. He was so consumed he had no consciousness of the effect his presence had in the halls of "M" University. If he had been aware, it might have assuaged his pride a bit, or at least provided him with a fleeting sense of satisfaction.

Students who were in "The Demon Kamijou's" cancelled classes and had the misfortune to glimpse their terrifying professor tramping through the corridor were filled with a sudden panic that the cancellation had been some sort of clever ruse designed by the Demon to test their loyalty to his course: some scheme to provide the man with yet one more reason for future berating and bombardment. One poor freshman girl who saw Hiroki's particularly fierce expression as he strode past actually fainted from fright.

Worse for Hiroki than missing the chance to meet his mother at the train station, was finally arriving on campus furious and out of breath, only to find Miyagi reclining comfortably on the couch in the shambles of their shared office, reading the paper and smoking a cigarette. The manila envelope containing the curriculum revisions sat very visibly on the end of the low table in front of the couch.

"Kamijou, my darling," Miyagi drawled, completely ignoring his junior's clearly disturbed state, "how lovely to see you. Funny thing… not three minutes after I called you, I found them."

"What?" shouted Hiroki. "Why the fuck didn't you call me then you bastard? You mean I came all the way down here for nothing?"

Miyagi regarded the younger professor from beneath heavy lidded eyes, not in the least distressed by his junior's tone (unlike the students who scurried past the open office door and were convinced by the sounds emanating within that someone would clearly be dying soon at the hands of The Demon).

"Does your boyfriend mind that you have such a foul mouth? " Miyagi inquired politely.

While Hiroki floundered for even fouler expletives to hurl at Miyagi, the older man continued, "speaking of whom, I would think that given the way things were sounding when I called, and if the way you are walking is any indication of what you have been up to, that you should be thanking me for extricating you from the grasp of that brutal gorilla you call your lover." Miyagi's hand fluttered unconsciously up to his throat as it always did when he thought of Nowaki.

Hiroki's face changed color in such rapid procession he looked like a malfunctioning traffic light. There were so many things to respond to in Miyagi's comments that he did not even know where to start.

"Honestly, Kamijou, what does that Kusama have that I don't?" The senior professor teased. He even had the audacity to affect a bit of a pout.

"I cannot begin to enumerate…" Hiroki hissed. He was so furious he had suddenly lost all other language. He kept his tightly clenched fists at his sides knowing that if he loosened them now for even one moment, with all of the books presently lying around…

"Fair enough." Miyagi said, folding his paper and rising up off the couch. It was obvious that Kamijou was in a particularly delicate state today. Goading him was simply too easy: it took the challenge out of it and as a result the senior professor was losing interest.

Hiroki however was not going to allow things to be so easily put to rest. "My mother really was coming in today and I had to send Nowaki to get her so that I could come here to help you."

"Well then, help man!" exclaimed Miyagi, gesturing to the ruin of his desk and the chaotic piles surrounding it. He bent down, casually stubbing out his smoke and began moving into the disaster area.

Hiroki sighed. Since he was already here and Nowaki had texted him that he was at the station waiting… He set down his bag, moved into the chaos, and began picking up books.

Miyagi suddenly embraced Hiroki from behind, "So, what does your mother think of your wife Kamijou?" he purred. He slid one of his hands down, resting it on Hiroki's ass. "Or is that what you are?"

Hiroki whirled around clouting Miyagi with an epic tome. "Get your hands of me Professor! I have had it with your harassment!"

Miyagi released the smaller man to rub the new knot quickly forming on the top of his head. He was so focused on the pain he almost missed Hiroki say quietly, "My mother has never met Nowaki."

"What?" asked the other man, surprised, "and how long have the two of you been together now?"

"Over six years," Hiroki sighed. He slid his most recent weapon into its appropriate spot on the bookshelf in front of him.

"Am I to infer from the way you have said this that your mother doesn't know how you are?"

"How I am? What about you?"

"I'm not gay!" Miyagi cried, "Shinobu is a one-time exception."

Hiroki shot the protesting Miyagi an incredulous look. "Hurrumph, right."

Trying to distract this conversation that the senior professor felt he was quickly losing control of, Miyagi interjected, "well, as soon as she meets that giant love monkey of yours, if she didn't know before, she surely will now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh come now Kamijou, don't you think your boyfriend is a bit obvious?"

Observing Hiroki's look of disbelief Miyagi elaborated, "how long do you think it will take for her to discern the situation—seeing the way he spoils you, endures all your moods, follows you around like a shaggy black-haired puppy?"

In the midst of his horror at what Miyagi was saying, Hiroki realized he might also be hearing just the slightest undercurrent of jealousy in the older man's voice.

"Oh to be a spider on the wall of your house tonight, my dear Kamijou," Miyagi chuckled, moving over to his desk to get another cigarette.

"I believe you mean fly… not spider," Hiroki mumbled as he knelt to retrieve another pile of books.

"Is it? Hmm, I guess I'll have to look that up later," Miyagi said between puffs.

Out the window the senior professor could see Shinobu huffing up one of the campus walks. The start to their day had been particularly quarrelsome and he was not sure he was ready to resume their heated engagement just yet. He glanced over at his auburn haired junior, his brow containing it uaual furrowed as he picked up each book turning it carefully over in his hands, inspecting it for damage, before returning it to its rightful location.

Miyagi moved back across the room and picked up the envelope with the revisions. "I am going to step out for a moment my darling."

Hiroki waved the other man away without a word; he was now gathering a pile of loose papers.

Hiroki spent three hours restoring the office. He knew he could have left at any time, but after his conversation with Miyagi, he did not want to go home. The older professor's comments really bothered him. While there were of course little moments when he and Nowaki were out in the world, a clasped hand or the big goof's occasional heedless kiss when he thought no one was watching, in all the time that they had been together, Hiroki had never considered Nowaki or himself for that matter, to be overt. Hiroki certainly did not feel that he or his partner conformed to any particular stereotype. Had he been wrong? He suddenly wondered if he'd ever seen themselves clearly.

Still, he tried to bolster himself with the thought that his mother was a traditional woman and had really seen very little of the world outside the family home. She might not even know about such things or if she did, her knowledge was bound to be minimal. So perhaps if what Miyagi said really was true, she would not notice.

One could only hope.

Hiroki's cell phone suddenly vibrated in the pocket of his jacket, breaking him from his reverie. He set his heavy bag down. (Miyagi had eventually returned, trailing the petulant Shinobu behind him and had rewarded Hiroki for restoring their office by giving his junior three classes worth of papers to grade for him over the weekend.)

Pulling out his phone, Hiroki saw it was a text message from Nowaki, about the twentieth since they had parted earlier in the day.

The auburn-haired professor had stopped reading them after the third text, where Nowaki had thanked him profusely for sending his mother the picture of him. Hiroki had been so mortified that Nowaki had seen it he'd refused to look at any further correspondences.

Now though, he opened his phone and clicked on the message.

_Hirosan ru coming hm? Plz. Oxoxoxoxox Love__ N._

The please made the message sound desperate and Hiroki was suddenly ashamed of his cowardly behavior and of leaving the poor raven-haired giant alone all afternoon in the grasp of his mother.

As he reached over, now determined to turn the key in the latch this time, he heard a muffled noise through the door. Hesitantly he leaned in. Was that the sound of sobbing? Oh god, Miyagi had been right after all!

Hiroki opened the door and rushed in.


	5. Chapter 5: Spatula and Speculation

**Chapter Five: Spatula and Speculation**

Hiroki's heart was torn by the scene he encountered upon entering the apartment. Nowaki was standing at the kitchen sink his back to Hiroki. Mrs. Kamijou was seated in a chair at their small dining table, one hand in her lap clutching the fabric of her kimono, the other pressed to her eyes. Her head was bowed and her shoulders shaking.

Hiroki immediately moved over to her, not even bothering to remove his shoes, and knelt down taking her slender hand between his. "Mother," he said, his voice terribly pained, "I am so sorry."

He shot a look of dark fury at Nowaki who had emerged from the kitchen a glass of water in one hand and a concerned look on his face.

"You should be!" the lady Kamijou gasped, "leaving me with Kusama-san all this time while you are off at the University! At least now I know why you have been roommates for so long." The lady hiccuped as she raised her head wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Besides being such a good cook, he is so very funny!"

Hiroki looked up startled to see the wide grin that filled his mother's face.

"Thank you Kusama-san," Mrs. Kamijou said as she accepted the glass of water Nowaki held out to her.

"Kusama-san was telling me about some of the things the children say to him at the hospital. Oh, I thought I might die of breathlessness, I was laughing so hard."

Hiroki, shot to his feet from the humble posture he had adopted before his mother. His concern for her imagined heartbreak evaporated and he was suddenly outraged that she had not been weeping.

The lady took a sip from her water and once she had regained her composure she greeted her son properly. As she gave his hand an affectionate squeeze she said, "I can see even with Kusama-san's excellent cooking that you still need to get a little more meat on your bones. Ladies like a man of substance Hiroki-kun."

Hiroki felt his ears grow hot. "I need to take off my shoes and change my clothes," he mumbled, slipping out of his mother's embrace and heading towards his bedroom.

Mrs. Kamijou watched her son disappear. He had always been elusive, even as a child, sometimes slipping away for hours at a time. She sighed, and turned back to Nowaki who was skillfully preparing their evening meal. She had offered to help numerous times, but the tall young man had politely declined each. She was surprised at how adept he was in the kitchen. As a result of his culinary efforts, rich aromas filled the whole apartment.

She looked about the place and marveled again at how immaculate it was considering that it was shared by two men and each with such a busy schedule. She had been even more shocked when Nowaki had told her that he and Hiroki shared all the household chores, including the cooking (though the dark-haired man admitted that Hiroki's meal preparation consisted largely of heating frozen things in the microwave) her son had always been worthless in these matters when he was living at home.

Arriving that afternoon, Mrs. Kamijou had been stunned by how modest the apartment was, yet Kusama-san seemed so proud of it. Hiroki's mother had of course taken into account Nowaki's background. He had disclosed a bit of his history, encouraged by her gentle prodding, and it was clear that this was the most the young man had ever had. Also, it was obvious he did not know the extent of the Kamijou family's wealth, although once Hiroki-kun left home, he had refused any assistance from his parents: the boy was so damned proud.

She was touched that Kusama-san was giving up his bedroom for her comfort. He told her he didn't mind sleeping on the couch and that if he got called into the hospital that he would not be at home at night anyway.

Noting all the books in his room, Mrs. Kamijou was in near awe to find that these too, like most all of the others in the house belonged to her son. She was astonished that the young doctor would so easily relinquish his space, but Kusama-san had told her that his own possessions were few and then added with a dreamy grin that there was only one thing that belonged to him that he really cared about. She had not pressed out of politeness, but she was curious as to what could possibly be so important to the man.

Hiroki's mother had commented then on the lovely comforter on Nowaki's single futon. It sported a pattern of delicate lilies and seemed quite out of place amongst the sparse and masculine décor in the room. The tall youth confided that Hiroki had acquired it to make his mother's surroundings during her visit more enjoyable. (Actually it had been Nowaki who had done this and he had been severely reprimanded by Hiro-san for wasting his so hard earned money). The lady Kamijou was pleased with this unexpected attention from her son.

After she'd had the chance to change out of her traveling clothes and into her more comfortable kimono, Nowaki had finished giving Mrs. Kamijou the tour of the apartment. Seeing her emerge from her room, Nowaki thought the lady looked just wonderful in this more traditional costume and it gave him ideas for future gifts for his boyfriend.

Glancing into Hiroki's room, his mother was startled by the extravagance of the double-sized futon. It seemed so unlike her son. Then she realized with pleasure that this at least indicated the man was not likely sleeping alone every night. She decided it was a hopeful sign.

Looking back at iron chef Nowaki, Mrs. Kamijou noted the high quality of his cooking utensils and complemented him on his choice. "Oh," said Nowaki, beaming, "Hiro-sa…Hiroki gave me this wonderful set for New Year's." He flipped his stainless steel spatula up in the air and caught it with ease as it came down. "This is my favorite piece."

"Oh, that reminds me," the lady exclaimed, her eyes pinning her son who, now changed was trying to sneak back into the room unobserved, "Hiroki-kun thank you so much for the beautiful flower arrangement you sent me last week for my birthday. I was so touched, as you usually forget!"

Hiroki's eyes went wide and he shot a glance at Nowaki, who just smiled and looked down, his cheeks coloring slightly.

"Umm… You're welcome." he said his own color burning far more brightly as his eyes shifted from his roommate to his mother.

Hiroki was saved from further disgrace (or so he thought) by the dinner bell as Nowaki chimed cheerfully, "Food's done, let's eat!"


	6. Chapter 6: Sly Puppy

**Chapter Six: Sly Puppy**

* * *

><p>It is amazing how different two people's perception of the same experience can be. Take tonight for example, around the Kusama-Kamijou dinner table: Nowaki was in heaven and Hiroki was in hell.<p>

Knowing that it was going to be a tense evening, Nowaki had purchased a small bottle of wine to accompany their evening meal. He eventually enticed the lady Kamijou to accept one glass and then another. After finishing her second glass of wine, it seemed that in addition to their striking physical similarities, there was another thing that Hiroki shared with his mother: the fact that alcohol gave them a verbal ease surrounding matters of the heart that was otherwise difficult to access.

Now the lady sat, completely relaxed - her spirits high, her cheeks slightly pink and eyes shining as she enthusiastically answered Nowaki's seemingly endless supply of questions about Hiroki. Mrs. Kamijou was delighted, in fact, to have such a rapt audience for the discussion of her son. Throughout their conversation, Nowaki observed his silent lover seated across from him at the table. Hiroki maintained a stiff posture: arms crossed, brow deeply furrowed and face expressing a spectrum of reds and purples. Nowaki knew that there would be severe repercussions later for all his inquiries, but he was willing to face these; they seemed a small price to pay in light of the riches he was gaining.

Nowaki was learning so much about his dear Hiro-san. That he had played the piano. That he had excelled in both swimming and kendo. That the reason he did not like watermelon was that at summer camp as a boy, he had once almost drown trying to save one that had slipped away from the cook into the river. That even as a child, Hiro-san had thrown books when he was angry. That his boyfriend had maintained an unreasonable fear, well into adolescence, regarding the possibility of a takeover of the planet earth by hostile alien forces.

He took each new tidbit of information and tucked it away into his heart. "Thank you so much so much for telling me about Hiro-sa…Hiroki's childhood," Nowaki exclaimed, his eyes dancing.

"Kusama-san," Mrs. Kamijou ventured, emboldened by the wine. "Please forgive me if I am being too forward but I notice that you often hesitate before saying my son's name. Is there another way that you are used to addressing him perhaps?"

Nowaki bent his head slightly, a light flush coloring his handsome cheeks. Across from him Hiroki slumped down lower in his seat, wishing desperately that the earth would open up and swallow him whole.

"Yes," said Nowaki softly. "I usually call him Hiro-san."

The lady's eyes widened in surprise at the nickname. "May I ask why you call him that?"

Now there are those, like Professor Miyagi, who observing Nowaki's puppy-like adoration of his boyfriend, might as a result characterize the man as a muffin-head, but the truth of the matter was that in actuality, this was a very sly puppy. (One doesn't finish a two year course in medical training in a single year without an agile mind.) And as Hiro-san had already committed them both to this current path of deception, a little additional tweaking of the truth did not seem that far out of line.

"I call him that because…"

"Ouch!"

Hiroki's foot had suddenly shot out from under the table connecting hard with Nowaki's shin. The young doctor grimaced and rubbed his leg, but secretly he was pleased as this action only served to underscore what he was about to say. He lied to his lover's mother.

"I call him Hiro-san because it annoys him." Nowaki tried to sound slightly ashamed about this admission. He was disquieted by the mirror effect of the wide eyes initially displayed by the two Kamijou's.

"Well then," said the lady Kamijou, with an impish grin, "That is what you must call him. I mean, after all, what is a little good natured ribbing amongst men?"

Mrs. Kamijou glanced over at her irascible son, a look of concern suddenly furrowing her own lovely brow. While she was used to her boy's weighted silences and mad outbursts, she was not used to seeing his face this color. "Hiroki," she asked, suddenly alarmed. "Are you feeling alright? Is it possible that you have a fever? You have been particularly flushed all evening."

Hiroki was so mortified by the events of night he could barely speak. He would not have believed that one could suffer such embarrassment and not have it be mortal. It had taken everything he had to sit through dinner and even now, it was all he could do to not to upend the table and tackle the idiot giant sitting so cheerfully across from him. Only his pride and the presence of his mother had prevented him from doing so.

He spoke through gritted teeth. "I am fine, just tired. But if you don't mind, just in case I might be coming down with something, I think I will retire to bed early." _Hopefully to die in my sleep,_ Hiroki thought.

"Perhaps that is a good idea for all of us." His mother was beginning, slightly, to feel the effects of the wine. "Thank you again Kusama-san for giving up your bedroom."

"It is my pleasure, Kamijou-san," Nowaki replied in earnest. "As I said before, normally I would have been gone at night anyway." He stood and began to clear the table.

Hiroki in the meantime had gotten up and was making his escape into their bedroom.

The lady observed the tall dark-haired youth stacking the dishes in the sink and then looked speculatively at the couch.

"Kusama-san, please excuse me, but will you fit on that couch?"

"Oh, I might hang off a bit, but I am a very easy sleeper, so I don't mind." Nowaki said as he began running the dishwater.

"Hiroki!"

The embattled professor stiffened as his name was called out. The threshold of his bedroom was only inches away and yet the chasm between his current torment and the sanctuary of this room seemed immeasurable. He turned to face his mother.

"Perhaps you should sleep on the couch? You are not as tall as Kusama-san and after all, I am your mother not his. It hardly seems fair that it is your roommate who has to give up his bed."

Before Hiroki could respond, his sly puppy jumped in again, sensing another opportunity.

"Ah, excuse me Kamijou-san, but Hiro-san cannot sleep on the couch. He would never tell you this, but he has a terrible back problem."

"Oh?" Hiroki's mother, looked closely at her son. "So… I thought I noticed you limping when you came in." She saw the horrified look on her son's face. "Hiroki, a bad back is nothing to be ashamed of. Your father's bothers him from time to time. Too much sitting at a desk, I think. You should get more activity."

"More activity," Nowaki echoed. He shot Hiro-san a significant glance from across the room. He smiled seductively, "As a physician, I definitely concur with that advice."

Then Hiroki's mother suddenly clapped her hands in delight, she had just had a brilliant idea. "Hiroki, why don't you share your bed with Kusama-san? It is certainly big enough. That is if you do not object Kusama-san? I would sleep so much better without thinking of you being so uncomfortable, hanging off the couch."

"Well…" The restraint that Nowaki was showing as he pretended to consider this option was incredible. Watching his lover from across the room Hiroki decided he needed to re-evaluate his boyfriend's capacity for deviousness. This thought disconcerted him greatly.

Seeing the disturbed look on her son's face, the lady Kamijou chided, "Would this really be such an inconvenience to you, Hiroki? Remember when you were young, and Aki-chan used to sleep over so often? Even with your own futons I would often find you two in the same bed the next day." Assisted by the wine, her eyes grew misty as she remembered the tragic Akihiko and the innocence of her son's youth. "Sometimes Aki-chan would have his arms wrapped around you as though you were a big stuffed animal, the poor dear."

A loud crash startled her from her reverie. She looked over to the kitchen. Nowaki had just dropped a dish and it had shattered. She was shocked by the dark expression on Kusama-san's normally bright face.

"Oh my," said the lady suddenly flustered. "My dear Kusama-san, I hope you were not offended by my suggestion that you sleep with Hiroki." She had forgotten that not everyone was open-minded and that there were some men who might be sensitive to a situation like this, although the doctor had not struck her as this type.

Nowaki struggled to regain his composure. He gave Mrs. Kamijou a warm smile and was glad that she did not notice that his eyes were considerably cooler than his grin. "Oh no, I really don't mind, we used to often have to share beds at the orphanage. It was not uncommon for us to sleep together top to toe."

"Ah, it is settled then," sighed the lady Kamijou, relieved that no harm had been done. She looked at her son again. "You really must get to bed Hiroki, dear; your color is just awful."

Following her son's rapid departure, Hiroki's mother helped Nowaki clean up, despite the young man's protestations, and then went to bed. As she lay under the lovely new comforter, she listened as her son's roommate ran the water in the bathroom. Shortly after she heard him call softly to her son as he entered the other bedroom. She hoped Hiroki would not cause problems; he could be so petulant sometimes.

A short time later, Mrs. Kamijou had all but drifted to sleep. On the periphery of her consciousness she barely registered a spate of heated whispering. Then a loud thud started her from her near dream state. She sat up in the bed. "Is everything alright?" she called out worriedly.

She heard Kusama-san's voice, sounding a bit flustered, muffled through the thin walls of the apartment.

"Everything is fine Kamijou-san, I just fell out of the bed."

Reassured, the lady turned back in towards slumber. In her sleep-addled state she did not pay much mind to her final drifting thoughts. She had lived long enough with her son that the noise she had heard stirred distant memories. It had not really sounded to her like someone falling out of bed; it had more the distinct sound of someone being clouted with a thick and heavy book. Sleep overtook her, however, before she could carry this thought any further.

* * *

><p><strong>Dear all, thank you so much for the feedback and helpful criticism it has been greatly appreciated and simultaneously inspiring. Please continue to let me know how you think things are progressing and once more, thank you for reading!<strong>

**Cheers! **

**Cerberus Revised**


	7. Chapter 7: Promise

**Egoistfangirl, That was indeed what it meant, lovely Nowaki. Hope you find this note tow . This is one of my favorite chaps in this fic. the others are the two right after the pandasan. You are sending me to heaven with your notes, but now I must send myself to bed. 1:00am  
>here but if you keep reviewing I will wake up to heaven tomorrow!<strong>

**Cheers,**

**Cerberus/Don't Preach  
><strong>

**Okay, here is the next installment. Thank you all for the feedback, especially the detailed feedback of late, it has been very helpful.**

**This took a little more turn towards the drama in this chapter than I had expected. I hope that this does not disappoint. **

**I have most all of the rest of the story finished, two chapters more to do to fill in, so the whole piece looks as though it will be about 14 chapters. I hope to be posting these regularly over the next few days. The drama/comedy switch will occur throughout the rest.**

**There is a slight bit of a role reversal in this chapter for Hiroki and Nowaki, so I hope that things do not seem too ooc.**

**Thank you so much for reading and feedback is always welcome!**

**Chapter Seven: Promise**

While Mrs. Kamijou slipped peacefully off into the world of dreams, things in the next room were far from dreamy.

After dinner Hiroki had simply crawled fully clothed into bed.

Unfortunately, the man was too angry to sleep. Worse than that, he was too angry to even read. He had sat in the bed he shared with the big idiot, trying to focus on the thick novel he'd been studying, but the words danced on the pages in front of his eyes and nothing made any sense.

Finally he had given up in disgust. He had turned out the small light on the bedside table and simply lay down in the darkness of the room, pulling a pillow over his head. Despite the dark he was still holding the book in his hand, one of his fine-boned fingers marking his place. As he lay there fear, anger, shame- these emotions were having a cage fight in his head, each vying for victory over his thoughts.

What had he gotten himself into allowing his mother to visit? He knew the answer before the question even fully solidified in his mind: a complete fucking mess.

He continued to fume.

He felt so exposed. All Nowaki's probing questions and the embarrassing anecdotes his mother had responded with. How could his lover respect or even still like him after learning about all of these additional defects.

Hiroki had no delusions about himself. He knew he was severely flawed and this knowledge ate at him every day. He so wanted to be perfect: like that idiot boyfriend of his. Nowaki was warm and caring, not to mention tall and handsome. He loved people and found so much joy in the world despite everything he'd had to struggle through. People were drawn to the man, how could they not be? Sometimes being with Nowaki was overwhelming because it just underscored to Hiroki everything he was not. "I mean, what kind of guy forgets his own mother's birthday?"

Yeah, if Nowaki had a single fault, it would be that he loved Hiroki.

And the big dork had balls to say it to him all the time, no matter the older man's response. Nowaki was never timid about his feelings, nor did he seem to have any discomfort about his orientation. He accepted it in the same way he seemed to accept Hiroki: without reserve. Hiroki knew that if Nowaki had his way, that his mother would have known about them years ago. Hiroki knew that it was hurtful to his partner that they were engaged in this deception and yet, he simply could not bring himself to tell his mother.

It was not just a simple matter of courage.

Something that Hiroki had never told anyone, Nowaki or even Akihiko, was that half the senior Kamijou's already knew: had known since he'd unexpectedly seen a very unfortunate incident when Hiroki was still a teenager.

Hiroki's father had surprised the professor few days before, calling during his office hours. The auburn haired man had started when he'd heard his father's gruff voice on the line. He could not remember the last time his father had called him directly, it had been years: nowadays, they really only ever spoke through the intermediary of Hiroki's mother.

"Hiroki, I only have a few minutes on the line in between conferences," his father began.

"Nothing new there," the professor had thought bitterly.

"Your mother has told me she is coming to see you. I have done my best to dissuade her, but she has become rather determined of late."

"Yes, I know sir. I have had the same experience," Hiroki replied. (The senior Kamijou had forbidden his son to address him as father long ago, but the man still demanded that Hiroki use a title of respect when speaking with him.)

"I know that I do not need to tell you this, Hiroki," the senior Kamijou warned, "but your mother is a gentle woman with delicate sensibilities. Traits I fear she passed on to you in too much abundance," the man sighed. "Regardless, while she is there I expect you not to harm her. I do not wish to see her harmony disrupted or her mind troubled with unnecessary thoughts. I want you to do whatever it takes to keep her peace. Do you understand?"

Hiroki bristled at his father's harsh words. "And what if I say no?"

"That is not an option." His father's cool tone carried more force than a roar. "Did you get that last packet of possible brides your mother and I sent?"

"Yes sir. I but I don't know why you keep sending these things to me. You know…

"I know nothing of the sort," his father cut him off. "Make sure they are out where your mother can see them and try to look as though you are at least considering them." With that his father had hung up on him.

"Fucking bastard," Hiroki thought as he lay in the bed, rubbing his watering eyes with his free hand.

"Hiro-san?"

Hiroki had no idea how long he'd lay there ruminating when he heard Nowaki call his name. He turned over on his side putting his back to the big idiot as he felt Nowaki slip under the sheets next to him. The giant had better not try anything tonight because the smaller man was in no mood.

Nowaki was being persistent. How could he not be?

He knew that Hiro-san's mother was sleeping in the next room. In a way this kind of added to the excitement of it, but more than that, he'd been stirred by what the lady Kamijou had said about Hiro-san and that damned Akihiko.

It made Nowaki crazy. He knew rationally that Hiro-san had a past, that he'd had one other love in his life and more than a few other men, and that there was nothing he could do to change this. But Nowaki's heart was unreasonable, it wanted there to be for Hiro-san's past, present, and future, no one but him.

The only way that Nowaki knew how to alleviate these powerful emotions that he so often wrestled with, was to possess the man as passionately and frequently as he could. It was as if every time they made love, with each thrust, Nowaki was trying to drive out of his lover any memory of another. This is why he reached out to Hiro-san in the dark tonight; despite the fact he could feel the other man's anger radiating out from across the bed before he even touched him.

Nowaki grabbed Hiro-san and pulled him into to him.

Hiroki stiffened and not in a good way, when he felt Nowaki's warm hands on his skin. "No, Nowaki," he growled, "not tonight."

Nowaki didn't listen, his blood was up. Instead he planted hot kisses down the nape of Hiro-san's neck.

"Nowaki, my mother is in the next room," Hiroki hissed.

Nowaki, still unheeding, sat up and reached over the reclining figure next to him. He slipped his hand down to the other man's groin and was pleased to find that even in his resistance, Hiro-san was growing hard.

"Then I guess you'll just have to practice being extra quiet tonight Hiro-san," Nowaki whispered as his skilled hand began to stroke him.

Hiroki's anger only increased with his arousal.

"No, Nowaki!"

"Hiro-san," Nowaki purred.

Hiroki heard the familiar hunger in his lover's voice. The giant's other hand was traveling up Hiroki's taut belly towards his chest.

"No, dumbass!" Hiroki snarled, as he tried to pull away.

"Hiro-san." Nowaki leaned in over him.

Hiroki had reached his breaking point. He lashed out pushing Nowaki away. He swung his arms and the book he was still holding connected hard, with a loud "Whack," to the younger man's forehead. "I said no!" Hiroki raged in a ragged whisper. "It's not enough that you violate me at the dinner table, now you have to do it here too?"

The force of Hiroki's movements caught Nowaki off balance and the tall man toppled off the bed.

"Is everything alright?" came the concerned voice of Hiroki's mother through the bedroom wall.

Nowaki was panting hard, but managed to say, "Everything is fine Kamijou-san, I just fell out of the bed."

After that the only sound in the room for several minutes was the two men's labored breathing.

Hiroki threw himself back down and waited for his boyfriend to return to the bed. That's how these things usually went. When Nowaki persisted and Hiroki (seriously) resisted, once the younger man was sufficiently rebuffed he usually settled down: there would be a quiet apology and then they would settle in.

But Nowaki did not get back into the bed. In fact, as he strained to listen, it didn't sound to Hiroki like the other man was stirring at all.

Hiroki released the book he'd been clutching and reached over, turning on the light on the night stand. Nowaki was seated on the floor beside the bed holding his head in his hands. Hiroki slid across the bed, closer to him. "Nowaki?"

The tall youth raised his head slightly at the sound of his name and Hiroki gasped. There was a small cut above Nowaki's left eye where his temple had made contact with the book. A small trickle of blood trailed down the side of the man's face: the path of a crimson tear.

"Oh, Nowaki," his older lover sighed. The sight of the damage he'd inflicted on his boyfriend's handsome face broke Hiroki's heart. He slipped over to the side of the bed and swung his legs over the edge, planting his feet on the outside of Nowaki's long folded legs.

Hiroki reached out gently with his hands to cup the raven-haired man's chin and froze, when the other, not meeting his gaze, pulled his head away from the offered touch. This tiny movement had the power to shatter Hiroki's already rent heart.

Nowaki never drew back, he never retreated, he always moved forward. That Hiroki had finally succeeded, after all their time together to cause his boyfriend to shrink from him was unbearable. Though he would never admit it, it had always been Hiroki's greatest fear that someday his temper or his feigned indifference would cause Nowaki to retreat from him again. It brought up in the auburn-haired man all the memories from the other time Nowaki had withdrawn: when he had left him to go to America. That had been the most miserable year of Hiroki's life and the man had more than his share of these. He was not about to allow this to happen again.

Hiroki reached out once more. Though he would not look at him, Nowaki stayed still this time and did not pull away. The older man gently clasped his younger lover's face between his two hands. Hiroki leaned over and surprised the other by extending his tongue and licking up the tiny crimson trail on Nowaki's cheek. He covered the cut above Nowaki's eye with his mouth, sealing the wound with a tender kiss. Then he moved his face down until their foreheads were touching.

Nowaki looked up and Hiroki stared into his glistening blue eyes. "Glistening?"Hiroki was stunned. In all the time the older man had known him, he had never seen Nowaki cry.

"Hiro-san," the dark-haired youth whispered in a shaky voice, "I am so sorry."

Hiroki was shocked. "Nowaki, what on earth are you sorry for you big goof? I'm the one that hit you."

"I'm sorry … for trying to force you, Hiro-san," Nowaki said, turning his face to the side and resting it in one of Hiroki's strong hands. "I shouldn't have asked your mother all those questions. I just so want to know you. Sometimes I can't handle you had a whole lifetime before me. I just thought if I learned more about you, I might be able to figure out how to love you better."

"And what did you learn tonight?" Hiroki asked hesitantly, curious in spite of his trepidation at what the other might say.

"Just what I already knew, that you are the most amazing person: talented, driven, imaginative, all the things that I love about you."

Hiroki suddenly wondered if they had been listening to the same conversation. All he had heard was a litany of misplaced effort, failures, and neuroses.

Nowaki continued, his cheeks flushing slightly, "and I'm sorry I tried to push you physically tonight as well. It's just that when your mother described you as Akihiko's stuffed toy…" His voice trailed off but Hiroki could still see the dark anger that burned in the other man's eyes.

Hiroki suddenly realized that if Nowaki's first flaw was that he loved Hiro-san; his second flaw was that this love brought with it a definite jealousy. Strangely, knowing that Nowaki had more than one fault filled Hiroki with a glowing pleasure.

"Idiot," Hiroki chided, "we were children. Nothing happened."

"But hearing my mother talk about that tonight I realized something. There has been an aspect in my friendship with Akihiko where I suppose I have felt like a toy to him sometimes: something that is picked up when it is convenient or entertaining, and abandoned when its use for this passes. But this is why our relationship is so important to me Kusama Nowaki. I never feel like a toy with you."

Hiroki, blushed and looked away. "With you I always feel like a man… a much loved one at that."

"Hiro-san, I…" Nowaki began his eyes overflowing.

"Shut up dumb-ass," Hiroki growled and kissed the other man hard before he could utter another word.

During their kiss, Nowaki lifted his hands and clasped Hiroki's wrists. When they finally separated the two men sat, hands joined, just staring at each other for several minutes. Then a strange glint came into Hiroki's eyes and he leaned over and whispered something into Nowaki's ear.

The dark-haired man's eyes widened and a look of delight filled his face, wiping away any remaining traces of his earlier torment.

"Really Hiro-san? You promise?"

"I promise," Hiroki assured,

That was all it took. Nowaki pushed himself up between Hiroki's legs and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, leaning the smaller man back onto the bed. This time Hiroki did not resist.

"What about my mom and the noise?" Hiroki gasped as Nowaki, frantically pulled the older man's shirt off over his head.

"Don't worry, Hiro-san," Nowaki assured covering his lover's mouth with his own.

That night Nowaki drank every one of Hiro-san's moans.


	8. Chapter 8: The Morning After

**Chapter Eight: the Morning After**

When Mrs. Kamijou emerged from her room the next morning, the small apartment was already filled with the rich scent of coffee. She was not too surprised to find Nowaki busy in the kitchen but she was shocked by his appearance.

"Oh, Kusama-san," she breathed, "what a terrible fall you must have had."

The bandage that Nowaki had applied to the small cut over his eye did well to protect the wound, but it did not cover the angry purple bruise that surrounded it. Despite his injury the raven-haired man seemed to be in incredibly high spirits.

"I'm quite alright, Kamijou-san," Nowaki replied cheerfully, "I am fortunate to have a very hard head." He was still feeling high about the promise his lover had made to him the previous night. "Can I fix you something? A cup of coffee or tea perhaps?"

Mrs. Kamijou was embarrassed to have the young doctor waiting on her. "Coffee would be lovely, but I feel so badly. There's really no need for you to fuss over me, Kusama-san."

Nowaki, just smiled at the lady's protestations and set about fixing her cup.

The young doctor had been stunned, when Hiroki's mother had first appeared in the kitchen, in the difference between the two morning Kamijous. The lady Kamijou was bright and looked, even at this early hour, as though she were ready for anything: her beautifully patterned kimono was crisp, her hair neatly set, her face perfectly put together.

Such a contrast to his dear Hiro-san who most often stumbled into the kitchen in the morning, bleary–eyed and half dressed. With his face bearing his typical morning scowl and his auburn mane sticking out in all directions, Hiroki most often resembled some sort of deranged lion. (Of course, even in this state, Nowaki thought the man looked adorable.) Hiro-san's likeness to the king of the beasts did not stop there however: you had to give the man at least fifteen to twenty minutes of silence before attempting to engage him in any sort of conversation after he first roused, unless you wanted to be profoundly roared at.

"Where is that lazy son of mine?" the lady Kamijou asked as she sipped her hot coffee.

"Oh, I think Hiro-san might still be resting. He did not get very much sleep last night."Nowaki offered.

"He always was a restless sleeper as a child," Hiroki's mother sighed, "I hope his thrashing about did not bother you too much Kusama-san."

"Ummm, no," said Nowaki, "Hiro-san's thrashing does… did not disturb me in the least." The dark-haired man paused then added, "but I think perhaps his lack of sleep is more related to his back. I would not be surprised if it was not slightly worse today than yesterday."

"As I said last night Kusama-san," the lady Kamijou opined sagely, "Hiroki-kun's profession is too sedate. He really needs more activity. Can I trust you to see to that when I am gone?"

Nowaki took a sip of his own coffee. "Most definitely, Kamijou-san," he said around the lip of his cup, the mug barely big enough to cover his smile.

Hiroki's day was off to a terrible start.

Unbeknownst to the pair in the kitchen, for once, Hiroki was actually awake. In fact, between his lover and his conscience, the previous night he had hardly ever been asleep. He could hear the soft voices in the other room through the slightly opened door and knew he must get up before those two characters conspired some new and unbearable way to embarrass him. Then recalling last night, the professor realized to his horror it seemed that he had already done more than well enough to embarrass himself.

In addition to the early morning light that filtered through the blinds, Hiroki suddenly threw his arm across his eyes in an attempt to block out the promise he had made to Nowaki, as well.

Hiroki, had drunk hardly any wine during dinner, he was so nervous and worried about what he might let slip if he imbibed too much, so he couldn't even blame what he had said on alcohol. He had felt so badly about injuring the man and so touched by Nowaki's jealously of Akihiko , he had been moved into state of what he could now only think of as temporary insanity. His memory of the words he'd whispered to his younger lover, still buzzed in his mind.

"Nowaki, I swear I will be no one's plaything but yours from now on and I'll prove it to you. Once my mother is gone I will give you an entire day to be only your toy. You can even dress me up if you like. I promise."

At the time it had been worth it to say this, if only to wipe the terrible look of pain out of his lover's eyes. But today as he lay there feeling the heat rise to his cheeks, Hiroki began to somehow convince himself that Nowaki had purposely planned everything, planting himself in front of the book Hiroki had smacked him with, to maneuver his older lover into making just such a pledge. Regardless, the poor professor had a sinking feeling that this was one promise Nowaki would not let him out of and he had a sudden terrible vision of the maid uniform that the tall youth had hidden somewhere in the apartment. He groaned.

"Hiro-san?"

Hiroki looked up from under his arm to see his giant leaning casually against the door frame of their bedroom. The big oaf had the stupidest grin on his face and was beaming from ear to ear. "I think it's time for you to get up now."

Rather out of character for his boyfriend, Nowaki winked at Hiroki and then turned back towards the main room.

Hiroki's worst suspicions had just been confirmed.

Later as the three sat around the table finishing breakfast, Hiroki glanced up from the book he had studiously been pretending to read so that he would not have to engage in conversation with either of his table mates. He looked at his mother suspiciously.

"Mother," he inquired, "when are you meeting your friends for shopping today?"

"Oh," Replied the lady Kamijou uncomfortably, "Did I forget to tell you? The others weren't able to come at the last minute. Asuka-san had a sick granddaughter and had to stay to help out her daughter in- law with the children, and Natsumi-san forgot all about her eldest grandson's violin recital. What were the ladies to do though? you know how important family is to them." Hiroki's mother covered her mouth and laughed nervously. "After that the other ladies decided not to come as well. But since I had already made plans to see you, I elected to come anyway. And isn't it fortunate that I am staying with you? Otherwise, I would have had to be a strange hotel room all by myself."

Nowaki, observing the familial exchange wondered if the lack of ability for effective deception was another Kamijou trait.

Hiroki, likewise had immediately seen through his mother's ruse and knew the intention of her comments. "Well," he said rather pointedly, "Given what you have just told me, I don't understand why people are so keen to have grandchildren. They sound like a terrible bother. I am sure you are pleased not to have to suffer that type of disruption to your plans."

Nowaki frowned at Hiro-san seeing the look of pain that flashed just for an instant in lady Kamijou's eyes.

Hiroki pretended not to notice. "I am afraid I have classes today," he said as he got up from the table, "so I will not be able to take you around. Had I known earlier, I might have been able to arrange something."

"That's entirely to be expected, Hiroki-kun," his mother said, eyes lowered, "I am sure I will be just fine on my own."

Her son moved toward the front hall. He put his book in his bag, donned his coat, and began slipping into his shoes. "I have to go so I'm not late for class."

"Kamijou–san," Nowaki interjected enthusiastically; "I have today off and would be delighted to take you around. Hiro-san, I could make lunch and Kamijou-san and I could bring it to you at the University. We could eat together and then your mother could see where you work."

Hiroki paled as he contemplated the possibilities. He could just imagine introducing his mother to Miyagi.

Hiroki's mother brightened immediately at this prospect. "Kusama-san, are you sure that this is not inconvenient for you? I certainly do not wish to impose. I mean you must have many other people vying for your attention. Perhaps a special lady?"

"Today, my dear Kamijou-san," Nowaki said gallantly, "You are the only special lady I am interested in."

The lady Kamijou blushed slightly. Nowaki looked up at Hiroki and gave his departing lover a cheeky grin. "Sound okay with you Hiro-san?"

The flustered professor tried hard to suppress a grimace. "Just splendid," he growled as he ducked out the door. Though he had not thought it possible, Hiroki's day had just gone from bad to worse.


	9. Chapter 9: the Necktie Defense

**Egoistfangirl, That was indeed what it meant, lovely Nowaki. Hope you find this note tow . if you're seeing this twice it's because i uploaded it earlier, but the message wasn't showing. hope fully you will find this on one of these chaps. Chapter seven is one of my favorite chaps in this fic. The others are 18 &19. You are sending me to heaven with your notes, but now I must send myself to bed. 1:30am here but if you keep reviewing I will wake up to heaven tomorrow!**

**Cheers,**

****Cerberus/Don't Preach**  
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**Okay, so here is the next batch. This section might seem a bit slow to some, but I promise it will pick up again soon. Hottness is definitely impending. **

**As always, your comments are very much appreciated and thank you so much to all of you who have added this story to your alerts. : )**

**Chapter Nine: The Necktie Defense**

All morning Hiroki had been distracted.

Miyagi noticed it when he wrapped his long arms around his junior in greeting when Kamijou entered the office and the man had not even tried to bat him away. Hiroki had just stood there looking sullen until Miyagi became uncomfortable with the other professor's silence and had voluntarily disengaged.

His student's in the Demon's two morning Intro classes had noticed as well. There was a betting pool going for the semester with odds on how many times Professor Kamijou would throw things in class. For the serious gambler, this was could be further divided into specific categories of objects. The score for this day (two erasers, five pieces of chalk, and one book), as recorded by those students charged with keeping track of such things, was well below the normal average.

Even students who simply saw him passing by in the hall noticed a distinct lack of fierceness (and perhaps just the slightest of limps) in the fearsome professor's stride. The Demon seemed oddly deflated.

The external discrepancies, however, did not even begin to reveal the inner turmoil the man was dealing with. It had only been **ONE** day. And Hiroki was supposed to keep this up for an entire week? It did not take a particularly acute intellect to figure out easily that this was going to be impossible.

As he neared his office the professor was surprised to see his mother, sitting alone on one of the long benches lining the hall, clutching a bag containing their lunches on her lap. He almost didn't recognize her in the crisp pantsuit she wore; it was so rarely he had seen her in anything but more traditional garb. He grew concerned as he realized that the lady Kamijou looked a bit distressed.

"Mother," he called softly, a little embarrassed for some reason to be saying this word in the University hallway.

Mrs. Kamijou's face broke into a relieved smile as soon as she saw her son.

"Where's Nowaki?"

"Oh," the lady said, "Kusama-san got a call from the hospital. An emergency, so he couldn't make it."

"Why didn't one of you call or text me then?" He frowned. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you being out in the city by yourself."

Hiroki's mother was touched by this unexpected display of concern from her son. "Well, I didn't want to worry you and besides," she added with a touch of pride in her voice, "as you can see, I didn't have any trouble finding you at all by myself."

Then her hands fluttered a bit. "Well actually, I can't say I did it entirely by myself. I met this lovely young man. A student of yours I believe, though he hardly looked old enough to be in college. Anyway, he helped me find your office. He was so sweet; he had this shaggy brown hair and the biggest green eyes. Takahashi, I think his name was. Something about him reminded me of you at his age."

Hiroki rolled his eyes. He had a pretty good idea of who his mother had met: Akihiko's brat Misaki. Sometimes the world was just so goddamned small.

He wondered what, if anything, it was that his mother could have possibly found in the boy that bore any resemblance to himself? I mean, the brat was so annoying. From what the professor knew of the youth, Misaki was completely under Akihiko's control and, though he protested it, the boy was obviously smitten with the author. He was smart, Hiroki admitted grudgingly, but totally insecure and unsure of himself, and Misaki had that ridiculous and way overblown temper Akihiko was always going on about…

"Oh shit…"

Hiroki rubbed his forehead trying to soften the blow of his realization. Maybe he should start looking out for the brat a little bit more.

The lady Kamijou was still rambling. "Yes, he was very kind, but also in a bit of a rush. The poor boy seemed nervous and he kept muttering something about being late for a _demon_." "What do you suppose he could have meant by that?"

"Well, maybe he's a Religious Studies major," Hiroki offered drily.

Wait a minute, Hiroki thought, Misaki was in his second Intro class and the pipsqueak had come in late today: a fact that had earned the boy one of the two chucked erasers that the Demon had thrown. "Mother, how long have you been sitting here? Please don't tell me you've been waiting in the hall for me for over an hour. Why didn't you just wait in my office? It would have been much more comfortable."

The lady's face paled and she looked nervously at her son. "Well," she said hesitantly, "I thought that was supposed to be your office," indicating the door across the hallway.

"Yes, that's my office. I share it with Senior Professor Miyagi."

Hiroki's mother blanched. "You share an office with that… that man?"

"Yes. Why, what's wrong?"

"Oh, Hiroki-kun." His mother's cheeks grew hot and her voice dropped to a whisper. "I knocked on the door when I arrived here and no one answered, but it was unlocked, so I opened it and I saw that man…" Lady Kamijou fanned her face with her hands. "He didn't see me, but… He had a boy with him in his office… a young boy… and he was doing things to him."

It took everything in his power, but Hiroki, for once, kept his overly expressive face carefully neutral. Inside however, he was furious. How many times had he told those two deviants to make sure to lock the fucking door if they couldn't control their perverted urges?

Hiroki, tried to sound casual. "Oh Mother, I'm sure you just misunderstood what you saw. Miyagi was just probably helping a student out. He's very paternal," Hiroki lied.

"Oh Hiroki, I may be an old lady, but I know what I saw. That terrible man had that poor boy in his lap and the boy's shirt was half off, his tie undone…"

The professor breathed a sigh of relief: at least his mother hadn't caught them fornicating outright. He might still be able to salvage things.

"Look, Mom…" Hiroki wanted his voice to be soothing, but this was a whole new range of sound for the man whose vocal repertoire consisted primarily of grumbles, shouts and hisses. He wondered if his mother would find his words comforting or think her son merely sounded tired. "Was the boy sort of blondish? Kind of skinny, with a face that looked like he'd just eaten a bunch of sour cabbage?"

"Why, yes," breathed his mother, "how did you know?"

"Oh, that's Miyagi's brother in-law. I'm sure the Professor was just helping him with another wardrobe malfunction."

"Wardrobe malfunction?" his mother echoed quizzically.

"Ummm, yes." Hiroki suddenly found himself wishing that he'd majored in creative writing instead of literature as he tried to weave together enough rational threads for this particular fabrication.

"You see, as I said, the boy, Shinobu, is a relative of Miyagi's… Poor kid, he's terribly slow, but his father is the dean, so they let him in…politics, abuse of power and all that... Dumb guy can't even dress himself properly half the time, so whenever he stops by to see Miyagi… the little idiot is awfully attached to the professor for some reason… Miyagi has to get the kid get straightened out. Fixing missed buttons, retying his tie. You know."

Hiroki's mother looked at her son incredulously.

"So I'm sure you just saw Miyagi helping, Shinobu out. I can see how that might be misinterpreted though."

Hiroki realized that this was probably the largest group of words he had ever assembled at one time in communication with his mother during the past few years, and it bothered him to realize that it had all been done for a lie. The professor suddenly felt exhausted.

"This happens often?" his mother asked.

Hiroki nodded. He was currently out of words.

"And your senior professor explained all of this to you?" The lady Kamijou was looking at her son suspiciously.

Not sure how to respond, Hiroki just nodded again.

"Oh, Hiroki, you are so naïve," she clucked, reaching up and patting her dear boy on the arm. "I think living in books as you do, that perhaps your life has become too sheltered.

Hiroki gave it one more shot. "Well, did you see the boy leave? And if so, did he seem upset at all when he left the office?" (God forbid, Hiroki thought suddenly, that the two nymphos might still be in there.)

Mrs. Kamijou reflected. She had seen the young man leave the senior professor's office about fifteen minutes after she had peeked in. He had come out alone, unruffled and properly attired and his facial expression as she recalled hadn't looked nearly as sour. One might even go as far as to say the boy's face had looked strangely satisfied.

She shook her head. She didn't know what to think.

"Mom," Hiroki interjected, pulling her from her thoughts, "How about if we go outside to eat?" The auburn haired man was desperate to change the subject. "The weather is fairly pleasant and I think I have enough time before my next class. Let me get my jacket and I'll be right back."

The lady Kamijou followed the professor up to the threshold of his office door. "Hiroki-kun," she asked hesitantly, obviously concerned, "that Professor Miyagi never bothers you does he?"

Hiroki felt his face grow hot and hoped his mother would not notice. "Miyagi, oh no. Like I said before, I think you just misconstrued his intentions, let your imagination run over a set of innocent circumstances. Let me assure you that Miyagi Sensei is always absolutely professional with me."

These words had no sooner left Hiroki's lips than the door opened and Miyagi stood before them in all his flamboyant, flirtatious glory. "Kamijou, my sweet honey, where have you been since this morning, my love?" Miyagi , not noticing Hiroki's mother standing off to the side, wrapped his big arms around the smaller man and snuffled into his junior professor's ear, "oh, but the office gets so lonely when you are not here, my pet."

The senior professor had hoped that the stupidity of Kamijou's students would irk the man back to into his usual irascible form.

Instead of an outburst, however, Hiroki's shoulders drooped and he sighed. He shook his head slowly, cursing the gods for allowing him to come into the world under the stars of such miserable luck.

"Mother, I'd like you to meet my senior professor, Miyagi Yoh."

Miyagi straightened slightly after he looked over the auburn head of the man he was encircling and caught the horrified eyes of the lady Kamijou.

When Hiroki had eventually confessed earlier that morning that his mother and the giant were coming to have lunch with him that day, the older man had all but clasped his hands with glee. He knew it was wicked of him, but he really derived such joy from tormenting the younger professor. Before Shinobu this hobby had really been the highlight of his otherwise dull and routine academic life.

Now while Miyagi had known he would have to be a little bit cautious around Kamijou's Neanderthal, the man was woefully unaware of the even more terrifying powers of the lady Kamijou. Miyagi released Hiroki and backed up as the horror on Hiroki's mother's shocked face was replaced by what started off as a seemingly familiar wrinkling of the brow. However, the furrow did not stop there.

Over the course of her lifetime the woman had had honed her repertoire of facial expressions to a razor's sharpness. The Kamijou men were a difficult lot and sometimes a lady's best defense was not a word or an exclamation, but rather a single well placed look. Hiroki's mother's expression of disapproval, in particular, was legend amongst the Kamijou clan: untempered it had been known to fell a man from thirty feet away. She loosed this fearsome gaze upon Miyagi now.

The senior professor backed up further. How could one slight, middle aged lady be so completely terrifying? Compared to his mother, the Demon seemed like a pollywog.

Miyagi, tried to recover. He bowed and offered Mrs. Kamijou a flustered, "pleased to meet you." The lady Kamijou did not return the man's greeting. Instead she sniffed imperiously and said, "Do you always conduct yourself so informally with your juniors? I am surprised that someone does not indict you for harassment."

Now both men were staring at the lady with wide eyes.

"Come Hiroki," his mother snapped, turning on her heels in the door and gliding out into the hallway.

Hiroki was mortified on all sides. Though he was exceedingly grateful that his mother had not launched into the subject of Shinobu, the poor man could not decide if he should be furious with Miyagi for being a complete ass or apologetic for his mother's terrible rudeness.

Fortunately, Miyagi, made this decision easy for his junior. The insufferable senior, who in most things had the emotional IQ of a guppy, was annoyingly resilient. Once the actual physical presence of the Demon's mother had disappeared, the older professor's bravado came bounding back. The only lingering sign of disquiet was the slight shaking of his fingers as he lit his next cigarette.

"You're a chip off the old block, Kamijou!" the older man said through his smoke, an uneasy grin on his face.

"Hiroki!" came a curt call from the hallway.

Delighted even in his temporary defeat to be able to get in the last word, Miyagi looked at Hiroki, his wicked humor still not extinguished. "You'd better go Kamijou," he chided, "your mother's calling you."

Any sympathy or embarrassment Hiroki might have felt for Miyagi melted like the smoke from the man's cigarettes. The Demon shot his senior a scowl, though not nearly as effective as his mother's, grabbed his coat, and strode out into the hall.


	10. Chapter 10: Bento

**Chapter 10: Bento**

Out in the open air of the quad, mother and son sat quietly side by side on a bench, each picking at the lunch Nowaki had packed for them before he was called away.

Hiroki's mind was busy fluctuating between his next lecture and how he was going to deal with his father if his mother ever disclosed what she'd witnessed that day.

On the other end of the bench the lady Kamijou was equally distressed. She wondered if her son's association with that lewd Miyagi wasn't to blame for some of Hiroki's difficulties in finding and securing a mate. How long had he been working with the man?

Wouldn't their association have begun not long after Hiroki had finished with the first of his undergraduate work?

That was not long after he'd had that terrible breakup with that mystery girl. The one who left him before Mrs. Kamijou had ever had a chance to meet her. Hiroki had been despondent over that for almost a whole year.

It didn't seem to the lady that her son had really had a decent relationship since then. Thank goodness he had such a good friend in Kusama-san, otherwise the man would have likely become a hermit.

Still, now knowing Miyagi, it all made sense.

Hiroki's mother knew that beneath his volatile exterior that her son was actually a bit delicate. It must be such a blow to his male ego to have to deal with such perversions daily and for so long now. Surely the timing of this following the dissolution of his last great love had affected her boy's confidence.

Yes, that was it. This would explain so easily her son's seeming timidity in pursuing a suitable bride. Poor Hiroki! Thankfully, Mrs. Kamijou knew that one did not need extreme confidence (though it surely helped) to secure a decent partner, there were more traditional ways.

Hiroki was feeling guilty for being so silent, but he did not know what to say. The weather he decided at last, would be the most benign subject to discuss. "It's nice to be eating out here on such a pleasant day."

"Oh Hiroki-kun," his mother replied brightly, determined to steer the conversation, whatever its origins down a particular path, "it is so nice to be with you here, but I wish you would consider coming home more often. Your father and I get to see you so seldom. He's always asking after you and I'm sure he would be delighted if you would consider visiting. Family is so important you know."

Mrs. Kamijou watched as Hiroki studied something in the bottom of his bowl. "Not likely," Hiroki said under his breath.

"What?" Mrs. Kamijou asked, her son's voice was so quiet she had not heard his words.

"I said I'll try," Hiroki sighed, "maybe at the end of term. It always was nice there during the summer." As he said the words, both Kamijous knew that this would not happen.

Studying her uncomfortable son, his mother ventured, "Did you get the packet that your father and I sent you?"

Hiroki put his chopsticks down and set his lunch to the side.

"Yes," he breathed, still not looking at his mother.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Did you see anyone who might be of interest?"

"I haven't really had time to look through it yet Mother, I've been busy." Hiroki was struggling to keep his increasing sense of surliness from entering his tone.

"Oh Hiroki-kun," his mother fluttered, trying to keep the mood of the conversation light, "your busy life is exactly why you must make the time to look at them. Just think how much easier your life would be if you found a lovely lady to take care of you so that you could devote all the time you wanted to your work. Perhaps you could secure a better post at another university then."

"Did Nowaki say how long he was going to have to stay at the hospital today before he left you?" Hiroki asked unexpectedly. The professor would never admit it, but he was suddenly and desperately overwhelmed by the desire to see his boyfriend.

Hiroki's mother was surprised by her son's interruption and perplexed by the seemingly unrelated question.

"Oh, he thought he might be free later this afternoon. Why?"

"I have one more lecture today. Let me call him. Maybe you and I could go to the hospital and meet him and we could all go out for dinner together if he doesn't have other plans. I mean, after all, he went to all the trouble of making dinner last night and lunch today. It seems the least we could do."

"Hiroki," his mother scolded, "it's Friday night. I'm sure Kusama-san must have a busy evening planned."

She saw her son's dejected face and realized suddenly how much happier (even if it was not obviously apparent to others) her son was when his friend was around. He'd always been like that she supposed, remembering his similar attachment to Akihiko when he was younger.

"But why don't you call him anyway and find out," she suddenly said, willing to try anything to lift her son from this depressed state. "Perhaps he will be free after all."

The lady Kamijou repacked their leftover lunch things as Hiroki walked off a ways to make his call to Nowaki.

Hiroki was furious with himself to find that he was relieved beyond belief when Nowaki actually picked up the phone in person.

Nowaki, as was his way, was delighted by the dinner proposal. "Can we go to Pandasan?" he asked.

For Hiroki the childlike excitement that the man expressed about the possibility of going to the exact same restaurant they went to every weekend was simultaneously annoying and endearing.

"I think that will be fine, but I'll have to ask my mom. I'll see you in a while." Hiroki tried to make his voice sound particularly gruff as he said this.

"Okay, Hiro-san. I love you."

Why did the big dork always have to say that? Didn't he ever worry who might be listening? Hiroki was about to hang up but he stopped just short of doing so. "Nowaki, are you still there?"

"Yes Hiro-san."

"Know that I'm only saying this because I am under a lot of stress right now, and don't plan on me making this a habit, but I miss you and I love you too." Hiroki said in a low growl.

"Hiro.."

Hiroki snapped his phone shut before Nowaki could respond to his declarations.

Between this confession and last night's promise, Nowaki floated through the rest of his shift. He wished Hiro-san's mother would never leave.

When her boy returned to her, Mrs. Kamijou's son's countenance was definitely brighter.

"Everything is a go." Hiroki said and for almost an instant he smiled. Then looking at his phone he saw the time. "Shit," he scowled, then seeing his mother's face, "sorry, but I have to go or I'm going to be late for class. What are you going to do while I'm lecturing?"

Hiroki's mother decided to venture a bold request. "Well, if it wouldn't be too disruptive, I'd really like to come and watch you teach." She said this almost shyly. "I promise to sit quietly and not be a bother."

Hiroki considered his next class.

Previously, his parents had both only shown the most superficial interest in his professional work and despite the anxiety it caused him, the professor was also secretly pleased by his mother's expression of interest. He was also feeling buoyed by the fact he would be seeing Nowaki in a few hours and would not have to spend the entire evening alone with his matchmaking mother.

"Alright," he conceded, being sure not to sound too amenable. He surprised his mother further by offering her his hand. "Let's go."


	11. Chapter 11: The Beautiful Way

**Okay, so this chapter might seem a bit dry to some, but I thought it would be interesting to see Hiroki actually teach a class instead of just hurl things at his students. **

**Just so you know everything he says is basically plagiarized from about four different websites on Japanese literature, though I changed some of the wording to try and get a more conversational flow. And yes, I am embarrassed to admit one of these sources is Wiki. **

**I have added a sort of footnote style of in an attempt to make the whole a bit more legal, though I know this might seem a bit weird in a piece of fan fiction. I hope it does not disrupt the reading too much (it's the academic in me I'm afraid).**

**The sites are included at the end of the chapter in case you feel like researching gay Japanese literature at some point down the road. I know I have found my next research deviation for the upcoming weeks, after writing this anyway, fascinating. My guess is after this, the literature professor may become increasingly more literary in my fanifics, though I will try not to wax too didactic.**

**Hope you enjoy it!**

**Chapter Eleven: The Beautiful Way**

Fortunately for Hiroki, the afternoon class he taught was a course on the subject of Japanese novels. It was the only upper level course he has been given this semester and he always looked forward to it as a reprieve from the drudgery of the introductory literature courses and the idiocy of their students he was primarily burdened with.

He was relieved that this was the class his mother would observe, as here he was rarely compelled to throw things. It was a relatively small group of students that attended this course. Not many individuals had the stomach for an encore with Demon Kamijou after Intro, and so he was satisfied that those enrolled in the class were the wheat, not the chaff, successfully winnowed and sufficiently dedicated to literature to merit the sharing of his passions with.

Unfortunately Hiroki and his mother arrived at the classroom just at the appointed time for his lecture to start, so her appearance caused a bit of a stir. All of Hiroki's students were there already: one did not play with punctuality when it came to a Kamijou course. Nervously he watched his mother shuffle to the rear of the classroom, taking a seat in the back row. A quiet murmur spread throughout the students as the visitor settled into her spot.

Who was this woman? The resemblance between she and the Demon was uncanny, yet her embarrassed smile was so sweet, her eyes so warm. Some wondered if she might not be his mother but this seemed impossible, as the most commonly held belief was that the Professor had been born from the unholy congress of two drunken _oni_* and was eventually spat out of hell and into the halls of the University because his personality was too troublesome, even for all the considerable powers of darkness.

Hiroki stepped up behind the lecturer's podium, set his book bag down and cleared his throat. The whispering evaporated and the lecture hall was almost immediately silent.

Over the last several class periods, Professor Kamijou had been discussing Genji Monogatari. It was an incredibly complex text to teach. The piece was written in the 11th century by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, and provided an account of court life in the city of Heian. The book was considered to be an undisputed monument in literature and, in the modern sense of the term, one of the world's first novels: Hiroki loved it. (4)

He started his lecture with a brief recap of what the class had previously covered.

"So we know that the Tale of Genji follows the life of a son of a Japanese emperor, known to us as _Hikaru Genji_, or _Shining Genji_. If you will remember, for political reasons, Genji is relegated to commoner status, by being given the surname Minamoto, and begins a career as an imperial officer. (1)

Now the majority of the tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and offers us wonderful insight into the customs of the aristocratic society of the time." (4)

Hiroki looked up and was pleased for once, to see that everyone so far seemed to be following him.

"Last class we were looking at some of the themes of the work and one of you, reasonably, because it is so blatantly obvious," Professor Kamijou said in his typically derisive tone, "mentioned the theme of forbidden love."

Hiroki paused. He looked down and his brow furrowed. The students simultaneously stiffened in their seats anticipating some form of outburst. So, they were surprised and perplexed then when their professor just stood there quietly.

Hiroki had just had the most outrageous idea.

The Demon took a deep breath. Despite the churning in his stomach, he decided to take the chance, his father be damned.

"The Tale of Genji as it was written provides us with an uncommonly rich resource for understanding what sexuality might have meant to the Heian courtiers within their polygamous society. Considering this, we now are all familiar with the heterosexual forbidden love of Genji, but there is another forbidden love alluded to in the text I would like for you to consider." (2)

If he did not have the students' undivided attention before, The Demon did now.

"Throughout Murasaki's writing, while there are no obvious depictions of same sex love, male friendships are highly eroticized. Take for instance, the section where our hero, Genji, ends up spending the night with the younger brother of a woman who spurned him." (2)

Hiroki pulled a dog-eared book out of his bag and stepped out in front of the podium as he opened it to a marked spot. "In this passage the text says, _Well, at least you must not abandon me. Genji pulled the boy down besides him. The boy was delighted, such were Genji's youthful charms. Genjji for his part, or so one is informed, found the boy more attractive than his chilly sister._"(3)

The professor closed the book and let the hand that held it drop to his side.

"Now, while this instance is fleeting. The last ten chapters of Murasaki's book, shifts the action away from the courts and into to the wild mountain area of Uji, where it follows the adventures of Genji's son, Kaoru. In the character of Karou, the author provides us with a complex exploration of an unconsumated same sex relationship." (2)

The class was listening to The Demon, entranced, though Hiroki did not notice it. He was really only speaking to one person in the audience.

"Kaoru, as he is written, is introspective. He does not respond erotically to women, and in general goes against all the conventions of the amorous Heian male courtiers. Instead, he finds stability and fulfillment as the spiritual student of the Eighth Prince, whom he comes to love deeply. But three years later, the Prince dies and leaves Kaoru bereft. (2)

The final chapters of the _Tale of Genji_ record Kaoru's attempt to ease his loss by forming relationships, none of them sexual, with the Prince's three daughters. But none of these can serve Kaoru successfully as a replacement for their father, and at the tale's end, Kaoru is still ensnared in his desire to recapture his love for the Eighth Prince."(2)

Hiroki continued, "Within this depiction, Murasaki creates a powerful portrait of a man unable to achieve Buddhist enlightenment because of his bonds to another man." (2)

A few of the female students in Professor Kamijou's class, voracious readers of BL no doubt, sighed unconsciously.

"You might find it of interest to know that this storyline was generated during a time when writing about same sex male relationships and such relationships themselves, were not only, not forbidden, but also not uncommon.

With the emergence after the twelfth century of temple culture informed by courtly tradition, literary activity shifted into the hands of the Buddhist clergy. Members of the male Buddhist clergy generally took vows to avoid sexual contact with women, but sexual and romantic relationships with boy acolytes, _chigo_, flourished in the temples and was often described as a natural 'outlet' for the men's emotional and sexual needs.(2)

With this, written depictions of male-male love changed accordingly and these relationships generated numerous love poems between the tenth to the thirteenth centuries and in the fourteenth and fifteenth century there was a genre of popular prose called acolyte tales, chigo montogatari."(2)

"Within the formation of the Samurai culture during these periods also, the ideas of same sex male love again evolved. For example, there was nanshoku, _the love of the samurai_, or bi-do, _the beautiful way_ or even wakashudo, _the way of the youth."_(3)

Some of the students shifted uncomfortably in their seats. It was not the topic their mad professor was discussing that caused them unease, but it was the man himself. His voice, usually growling with his passion for literature and frustration with his students' stupidity held another tone in it today. It was greatly disquieting to realize that there was perhaps a note of tenderness in the man's verbal expressions: a notion completely at odds with any previous experience of The Demon.

"Male love relationships between older samurai and samurai youths _wakashu_ in which an age difference and a sexual and emotional hierarchy existed between lover and beloved became a prominent feature of samurai society, especially among the elite."(3)

The professor looked back up to where his mother was sitting. From the distance between them, he could not read her face. As Hiroki began this next part of his confession, he thought of his lover, the difference in their age, their backgrounds, and their professional status.

"In fact, this tradition was honored, guarded even. Consider the writings of Ijiri Chusuke, who in 1482, penned," Hiroki did not need a book to read the next part. It was something he had memorized when he was still a student in middle school, "_In the world of the nobles and the warriors, lovers would swear eternal love relying on no more than their mutual good will. Whether their partners were noble or common, rich or poor, was exactly of no importance…In all these cases they were greatly moved by the spirit of the _(beautiful)_ way. This way must be truly respected, and it must never be permitted to disappear_. (3)

Hiroki sighed, "Yet, it did disappear which is why today, we will to return to where we started, and so add both Genji and Karou to the novel's exploration of the theme of forbidden love."

Hiroki stopped. This was as eloquent an admission as he could make.

His knees felt weak, so he attempted to look casual as he leaned back against the podium. He ran his fingers nervously through his auburn mop.

"Ummm, any questions?"

Looking at the open mouths of his silent students, Hiroki was relieved to feel himself growing irritated. This sensation was so much more comfortable than the state he'd been occupying just moments ago. When no one offered any comments or questions, he shook his head: he was surrounded by idiots.

"Alright," he conceded, enough for today, "class dismissed."

The Demon's pupils stared at each other incredulously. They were being let out early? Before whatever spirit had possessed their professor was exorcised and the true Demon returned, the students fled.

"But you better have taken good notes, because this may show up on your next test!" Hiroki shouted after them.

As they rushed out, Professor Kamijou thought he heard a few students wondering if the Demon might not be better suited to teaching Gender Studies rather than Literature.

In the midst of this exodus, Hiroki's mother made her way carefully back down towards her son. Several students paused in their flight (attributing Professor Kamijou's transformation to her presence) to thank her for attending and said with great conviction that they hoped she would soon return.

Now the classroom empty, Hiroki stood nervously in front of his mother. Her brow was furrowed in a familiar way and she did not look very pleased.

"Hiroki, was that your intended lecture for the day?" The lady Kamijou asked.

"No, well, not exactly." Hiroki was having trouble meeting her stern eyes.

"Am I to take it that you modified your topic, perhaps, to address me?"

Under his mother's fierce scrutiny the professorial spawn of hell, was in an instant transformed: Hiroki suddenly felt ten instead of twenty-nine.

"Yes, Mother, that is correct."

"Oh Hiroki-kun," his mother said, her voice laced with disappointment, "I know that he is your senior professor, but you should not have to defend him."

"What?" Hiroki gasped, astonished.

"Honestly, I do not think it appropriate that you spent your student's time trying to justify that man's deplorable behaviors. Beautiful way of the samurai indeed, misconduct with a minor more like. Hrrrumph."

The lady Kamijou straightened her shoulders and raised her head in proud indignation. She turned and glided towards the door. "I will wait for you out in the hall."

The Tale of Genji that he had still been holding slipped unnoticed from the Professor's hand to the floor,but it could have just as easily been his heart. Hiroki brought his other hand to his forehead massaging his suddenly spasming brow. He shook his head trying to dislodge the feeling of déjà vu: he was surrounded by idiots.

*******Oni**** - the classic Japanese demon, an ogre-like creature which often has horns.**

**I know these look crazy, but the site was doing wierd things with the links. Hopefully this gives you enough info. Feel free to e-mail me if you seriously want the links.**

**1. HTTP: / /W W W. EN. WICKIPEDIA. ORG / WIKI/T HE_TALE_OF_GENJI**

**2. HTTP: / /W W W. GLTBQ. COM/LITERATURE/JAPAN_LIT,**

**3. HTTP: / / W W W. / GAY-HISTORY/ GAY- CUSTOM/ JAPAN-SAMURAI-MALE-LOVE/ **

**4. HTTP: / / W W W. / TALE OF GENJI. ORG / SUMMARY/ HTML**

**Cheers,**

**Cerberus Revised**


	12. Chapter 12: Misaki Mouse

**Hello All My Dear Lovelies,**

**First, I heartfelt thanks you to all of you who have added my story to your favorites/alerts and for all the wonderful feedback and private messages. Here is my next installment. This chapter is a bit of a filler, but I thought it would be fun to bring a few other Junjou Romantica characters into the mix. After this, the rest will unfold pretty rapidly. I have all the remaining chapters written, but need to type them into my computer (so old school I know, but I can still write faster than I can type). I should be ready to upload the rest of the story by Sunday. So here are my questions for you:**

**How do you want the rest of it? **

**Would you like it in one quick thrust? **

**Or **

**Slipped to you a bit at a time? **

**You let me know, I am feeling generous tonight. (Insert Evil Seme Laugh Here)**

**Cheers,**

**Cerberus**

**Chapter Twelve:Misaki Mouse**

Hiroki picked the Tale of Genji up off the floor, gathered his things, and met his mother in the hallway. "I need to go back to my office," the dejected professor said. "I want to change my clothes and pick up a few things before we leave. I have a lot of grading to do this weekend."

The lady Kamijou's eyes widened as she considered returning to the den of iniquity that was her son's office.

"You can wait here if you want. It will just take a minute."

"Oh, no," Hiroki's mother said. "I don't mind coming with you." She did not want her son accosted again by that man and felt that her presence might provide at least a bit of security for her Hiroki-kun.

They walked side by side in silence down the University corridors.

"Ahem," the lady Kamijou cleared her throat nervously, and then ventured, "despite the unfortunate topic, Hiroki-kun, I think that you spoke quite well in your lecture. It is nice to see that all those elocution lessons you took finally paid off."

"It is comprehension not articulation that is troubling me at the moment," came her son's enigmatic response.

The two fell silent again.

Thankfully for both mother and son when they reached the office, Miyagi was not there. While the lady Kamijou offered to wait out in the hall and located herself in the exact same place where Hiroki had first found her earlier that day, the professor stepped into his office and locked the door.

Hiroki staggered over to the couch and collapsed. He sat in the silence of his shared space, slowly breathing in the vaguely comforting smell of old books and Miyagi's cigarettes. Then Hiroki took out his cell phone. Checking his texts, he smiled. Nowaki must have been very excited about the three of them going out to dinner together, because he had sent Hiroki at least a half dozen messages since the man had last spoken to him, each saying the exact same thing:

_Hooraypandsan!missu!loveu!Noxoxoxoxoxox_

Hiroki, when he texted, wrote exactly the same way he did when he was crafting an essay. Nowaki was aware of how much the informal and abbreviated language of technology pissed his professor off, and yet much as the giant knew Hiro-san hated it, Hiroki could not break his dork of a boyfriend from the habit of his cryptic texting. Well, with one exception: it amused and touched Hiroki that Nowaki always spelled out "love" in his messages.

Hiroki responded simply, as was his way, to his lover's last missive:

_I'll see you soon. Hiroki._

Then the professor scrolled down and saw a message from a number he didn't recognize. Opening the text, his stomach clenched.

_Checking to see that all is maintained. Will call this evening. Make sure to answer. Kamijou._

"Shit." Hiroki was suddenly relieved his mother had misconstrued his lecture.

The professor got up off of the couch and moved rather sluggishly over to his desk to gather up his wayward papers along with the ones that Miyagi had most recently foisted upon him. He put these into his bag and then took another satchel out of the lowest drawer of his desk.

This other bag contained a change of clothes. Hiroki had taken to keeping a spare set of garments in his office because… well, because sometimes when Nowaki visited him here, he really messed the professor up. Miyagi and Shinobu weren't the only ones who occasionally engaged in illicit activities amidst the stacks of books and scrolls, but at least Hiroki had enough sense to lock the fucking door.

Hiroki slipped out of his teaching attire. As he slid into a pair of well worn jeans, he glanced down at his now naked torso and grimaced. Nowaki might be sporting that bruise on his temple for the next several days, but Hiroki had not emerged entirely unscathed from last night either: he had several prominent hickeys on his chest today and a few more trailing down his taut belly. Hiroki covered these as he pulled an old sweatshirt on over his head. The soft fabric soothed his abraded skin and he was comforted by the weight of it. At least the big baka had not left any marks on his neck, although given his mother's apparent thickness, at this point, Hiroki thought; she probably still wouldn't have caught on.

Lastly, Hiroki pulled a knit cap out of his clothing bag and added it to his ensemble, pulling it down over his ears and trapping his unruly auburn tendrils beneath it. Transformation successfully affected, he sighed and unlocked the door, stepping back out into the hall to rejoin his waiting mother.

Mrs. Kamijou was startled by her son's appearance when he emerged from his office. She had really only seen him so far this visit, in his more formal state, even when he had been relaxing at home.

While in his professorial garb, the man looked markedly younger than his twenty-nine years; beholding him now dressed as he was, however, one could have easily mistaken him for simply another student.

"I don't think it's appropriate for you to be wearing a hat indoors," his mother observed, as they walked toward the hall's exit.

Hiroki rolled his eyes, "well, we won't be indoors much longer."

Mrs. Kamijou looked worriedly at her son. No wonder he was having trouble meeting someone if this was how he insisted on dressing in his free time, the man looked like a teenager and women generally preferred a bit of maturity in their men: it made them feel more secure.

"Hiroki-kun, that hat makes you look like a delinquent!" his mother declared.

"Mom!"

The lady said nothing more, but sniffed in disapproval at her obstinate son, watching as Hiroki merely screwed the cap tighter down on his head.

They were at the edge of the campus grounds, when Mrs. Kamijou suddenly brightened and grasped Hiroki's arm. "Oh, look there's that lovely Takahashi boy. I want to go and thank him again for helping me."

Hiroki had been lost in deep thought about his father's earlier text, and his mother's touch roused him from his ruminations. He looked up and realized to his dismay that it was indeed Takahashi Misaki that the lady had recognized. Unfortunately the boy appeared to be in the midst of a heated lover's quarrel with his boyfriend Usami Akihiko.

Akihiko was gripping a struggling Misaki by the arm and preparing to throw the boy into the passenger seat of his red sports car. While Misaki's Senpai, Sumi, stood nearby watching the whole affair with great interest.

Hiroki's mother shuffled quickly but daintily forward calling, "Oh, Takahashi-san, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to intrude, but I saw you and just wanted to say thank you again for all your assistance this morning."

At the sound of her voice, both men, author and student, stopped their actions instantly and turned around facing the lady almost in unison. Usami dropped Misaki's arm in surprise as he recognized the lady Kamijou. Misaki took advantage of this momentary lapse and darted away from the older man, rejoining his Senpai and staying clear of Usagi-san's long reach.

"Akihiko-kun? Is that you?" Hiroki's mother exclaimed in delight, momentarily forgetting about Misaki. "How unexpected to see you here and how totally wonderful!" She had doted on the boy when he was younger, serving as far more of a mother to the author as he'd been growing up than his own had.

Misaki's eyes widened in confusion as he recognized the lady and heard her words. "Akihiko-kun?"

Akihiko stepped forward to greet the lady Kamijou with a charming smile, while his lavender eyes shot over the woman's shoulder and located her mortified son. Hiroki could read an expression of startled curiosity on the face of the silver-haired man.

"Why Kamijou-san, how serendipitous," Akihiko said in a low purr. "Your incorrigible son was so rude as to not notify me that you were visiting, otherwise you can be sure that I would have called upon you."

Misaki had been watching the interaction between the author and the lady with dismay coloring his fine cheeks. "How embarrassing to think that this nice woman had just seen him being manhandled by stupid Usagi," he thought, though fortunately, she seemed to be too polite say anything about it.

"Hold on, wait a minute… Kamijou?"

When Misaki had escorted the lady to the Demon's office, he thought something about her had struck him as familiar. He'd given her his name in parting, but the woman had been too flustered to provide Misaki with hers.

"Was this the feared Professor Kamjiou's mom?" Misaki started and looked over at the scowling youth who had come to stand only a few feet from him and Sumi. "Holy crap, was that the Demon?" In street clothes he looked like just another kid from the Uni.

The lady returned her attention briefly to Misaki. "I hope Takahashi-san that the Demon was not too hard on you for being late to his class as a result of taking the time to help an old lady find her way?"

"What?" Hiroki blanched. "How did you know they called me that?"

Hiroki's mother looked over her shoulder at her embarrassed son. "Two of your students, young ladies, were sitting in front of me during your literature class and I overheard them talking about you." She added, "in addition to providing me with your nickname, they also said that when you weren't raging you looked rather cute."

Hiroki's teeth clenched and his cheeks flushed red at his mother's words. A subtle smile curled the corners of Akihiko's mouth and Hiroki suddenly knew he'd be hearing about this for months to come. Even Misaki started to laugh until a particularly fearsome glare from the professor stopped him, but not before a small giggle escaped through the fingers of the boy's hand-cupped mouth.

"There is still more than half a semester to go, Takahashi," the Demon warned, his voice low enough for the boy to hear but not his mother.

The lady turned back to the author, her eyes shining with affection for her son's oldest friend. "Akihiko-kun," Mrs. Kamijou was asking, "How is it that you know Takahashi-san?" The brief moment that the lady had observed the interaction taking place between the two men had struck her as awfully familiar.

"Oh," said Akihiko smoothly, "well you remember my friend Takahashi Takahiro. Misaki is his younger brother. The boy's parents are um… unavailable and Takahiro had to take a position with his company in another city unexpectedly."

"While I don't know how it was that you had the good fortune to meet Misaki, I sure that you, as all who encounter him do, noted how sweet he is. Too sweet to be left on his own I'm afraid." Akihiko looked at Misaki so intensely as he said this, the boy felt a shiver course up his spine. "So, I offered to take the lad in for the time being so that he would not have to leave the University."

Hiroki watched from under the edge of his cap as even more color filled Misaki's face during Akihiko's explanation. The boy was unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists, obviously about to explode; the auburn-haired man was chagrined to recognize this posture immediately.

"I deliver and pick Misaki up from the University here every day," the author continued, completely unaffected by his young lover's obvious distress. "Going to classes is fine, but you never really know what sort of characters like to hang around a university setting. Misaki is so tender: I do not wish to see him unduly impacted by negative influences." Usami was staring coldly at Misaki's Senpai as he said this last bit.

Thinking about her earlier run in with Miyagi, the lady nodded sympathetically. Poor Misaki looked exactly like that lecherous man's type. "Oh, Akihiko, I know precisely what you mean. Takahashi-san is so lucky to have such a caring guardian looking after him."

Usami offered the lady another rare smile.

Inadvertently, Hiroki and Misaki looked at each other in unison and shared a mirrored eye-roll. This was the polished Usami, the wry author who showed up at book signings and spoke at literary lectures: not the sex-crazed pervert that pursued a particular young college student relentlessly or called an already overworked friend for immediate emergency edits while he stole his bed, sleeping through already extended deadlines and avoiding rabid editors.

"Great," muttered Misaki under his breath, "the man makes me sound like an idiot."

The teen didn't realize he'd said it loud enough for anyone else to hear him, so he started when Hiroki snorted and growled, "you are."

Misaki, perhaps lulled by the Demon's current less than authoritative demeanor, was about to issue an aggravated response, that was until he heard the professor sigh and say rather tiredly, "we both are."

Hiroki watched his mother accept Akihiko's invitation for tea with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had a sudden terrible vision of his mother encountering one of his friend's Hiroki/Nowaki BL novels left out on the author's coffee table. He shuddered.

"Oh, it will be so nice to have the chance to catch up with you Akihiko–Kun. And perhaps I can find out from you what is going on in the life of my closed-mouthed son."

"I will do whatever I can to assist you," the silver-haired and silver-tongued man replied, shooting a deliciously evil look at his tormented friend.

"And what about you?" the lady asked unexpectedly. "The last time I spoke with you on the phone, you mentioned that you had found someone you were interested in. May I ask if that worked out? Are you seeing someone now?"

"Indeed I am," the author replied, his catlike eyes glinting as he suddenly caught the stunned gaze of his Misaki-mouse.

Hiroki saw the sudden look of fear on Misaki's face and felt an unexpected wave of sympathy for the teen. He knew that the kid was worried about Usami revealing their affair to someone, who was to him, almost a complete stranger. While he felt confident that his old friend would never do this to the boy… well relatively confident, it was Akihiko after all… Hiroki felt an equally unexpected wave of anger at the author for this cruel teasing.

"Mother," Hiroki interrupted, 'We need to get to the hospital to pick up Nowaki."

"Ah, Yes," Mrs. Kamijou breathed happily. "It was so good to see you Akihiko-kun, I completely lost track of the time." She bowed to Misaki, "Thank you again Takahashi-san."

"No problem, Kamijou-san," Misaki stuttered. He felt himself pinned by Usagi's lavender eyes and suddenly, feeling exhausted, breathed a sad goodbye to his perplexed Senpai and started meekly towards the red car. Usagi-san stood by the open passenger door and smirked smugly locking his young ward in as soon as possible.

As he slid in Misaki, heard Mrs. Kamijou say, "Now let's go find that Kusama-san." Misaki watched through the window and noticed Usagi-san shoot Professor Kamijou a significant look, his brows raised in question.

Hiroki scowled over his shoulder, shaking his head in a furious "no" at the author. Misaki, perceptive as he was, thought the Demon's eyes looked just for an instant, deeply troubled.

As he sank back into the rich leather seat of his boyfriend's car, breathing in the close scent of smoke and Usagi-san. He found himself wondering what the hell that final exchange had all been about?


	13. Chapter 13: What's Up?

**Hello Dear Lovelies,**

**So here are the next three chapters. Then there are five more to post and this particular tale will have reached its climax. **

**I must say, I was a bit surprised and pleased by the wantonness expressed and the desire from readers to "have it all at once."**

**And I apologize if now, by only posting three chapters I seem like a bit of a tease. (Actually, I'm not really all that sorry.) **

**Anyway, a bit of explanation, I had a request from dear, x-Guitar-x-Girl-x, to do something with the terrorist couple. (Good luck on your exams next week!) I hadn't intended to do anything more with them after chapter nine, but the suggestion brought so many possibilities to mind. So, I rewrote this chapter to include them (this has put me a bit behind). I have not done too much with this couple previously, so I hope that it pleases you. **

**I look forward to hearing your responses.**

**Cheers,**

**Cerberus**

**Chapter Thirteen: What's Up**

Nowaki had been having a wonderful day. In fact, for the last twenty-four hours his life had been pretty spectacular.

The young doctor had the joy of knowing now that Hiro-san had at least one picture of him on his cell phone; he had all those new insights about his lover offered so freely to him by Kamijou-san; and he'd gotten to know a bit about Hiroki's mother herself and found her to be a lovely, if a bit sheltered, woman. And now he, Hiroki, and the lady Kamijou, the three of them were going to go out to dinner together, almost like a real family.

Nowaki was also pleased with himself that he'd been able to return to calling Hiro-san, Hiro-san, and at finding a way to sleep with his boyfriend and not on the couch (though he did feel badly about tricking Hiroki's mother).

The tall man touched the sore spot on his temple and winced slightly. While their fight the previous evening had been troublesome, the makeup sex had been amazing and then, on top of all these things, there was Hiro-san's unexpected and most delicious promise.

Nowaki had been flying high all day on the possibilities inherent in Hiro-san's pledge: a whole day when the older man would have no choice but to allow Nowaki to love him. It was a dream come true, that and being able to dress Hiro-san up.

While some people might call Nowaki's interest in dress up perverted, Nowaki preferred to think of it as playful. And his professor could definitely do with a little more play, the man worked too damn hard.

The dark-haired youth tried to keep his mind on his rounds, but every so often he would get a picture of Hiro-san in some luscious costume (nurse, corset, leopard print cat-suit complete with ears and a tail) and his brain would cease momentarily to function properly.

It wasn't that, in his fantasies of cosplay, Nowaki wanted Hiroki to look like a woman. That Hiroki was a man was imperative in his appeal to the youth. It was the contrast of Hiro-san's very obviously male body, in those very obviously female clothes, that Nowaki for some reason found incredibly erotic. This and the fact that Nowaki adored the way that Hiro-san looked when he blushed and asking the man to don something like a school girl's uniform would ensure that blush for hours.

Nowaki had just finished making his rounds. The emergency he had been originally called in to assist with had been resolved. The child in question, thankfully, had been stabilized.

He could have left and gone back home, but as the hospital was understaffed, as usual, he had decided to stay and get the extra hours. After all, Hiroki's mother was with her son at the University now, so Nowaki did not have to worry about entertaining her.

The tall man had originally been feeling pretty rotten about leaving the lady Kamijou on her own, but at the same time, he was actually kind of glad he had been called in. Truth be told, though Nowaki was happy with how everything had so far turned out regarding Hiroki's mom's visit, on another level he was deeply bothered by how he and Hiro-san were deceiving her.

Nowaki knew that he did not fully understand all of his lover's reasons for keeping their relationship a secret from his parents, but he loved Hiro-san enough to be willing to respect his boyfriend's wishes, even if they didn't exactly align with his own.

The gentle giant had been becoming concerned however, that if he continued to spend too much time with the lady Kamijou, he would not be able to keep from blurting out the truth.

Nowaki returned to his locker to change out of his physicians smock and put away the few toys and tricks he kept in his pockets. He liked to have these on hand when he did his tours of the children's ward. Sharing them with his small patients helped to establish a rapport and to alleviate some of their anxiety.

Nowaki was just getting ready to leave to meet Hiro-san and his mother when his Senpai, Tsumori, appeared in the door. Tsumori was just getting ready to start the evening shift that he and Nowaki usually shared.

"What's up Kusama?" Tsumori had asked in greeting. He let out a low whistle when the tall man turned toward him in response and he saw the dark bruise on Nowaki's forehead. "What happened Kusama? Another lover's quarrel?" he joked, until he realized by the expression in the other's blue eyes that this was exactly the case.

"What is it with your old lady and clouting people on the head?" Tsumori asked almost angrily. He rubbed his own brow in sympathy remembering how badly it had hurt when Hiroki, in a fit of anger over seeing Tsumori flirting with Nowaki, had hit him.

Nowaki sighed, looking at his Senpai and said, "I don't mean any disrespect to you Tsumori Senpai, but how many times have I told you to please not refer to Hiroki in that way. It is not an appropriate designation."

"Yeah, Yeah," the blonde Senpai said. "It just bothers me to see how he treats you Kusama. " He stepped up and gently swept a lock of Nowaki's raven hair away from the wound. "You don't deserve that, no one does. Besides, you're such a great person. You deserve someone who will take better care of you." Tsumori's gaze took on a peculiar look as he said this.

Nowaki pulled back from the other man's hand, with a puzzled look on his own face.

Tsumori hesitated and then seemed to snap out of it, his usually sly expression reclaiming his features.

"Hey Kusama," he said, turning towards his own locker, "help me out. I want to go on a date with nurse Sazuki, but she won't come out with me alone, she'll only double and wants to bring her friend Arai along. Tell me you'll come along with me to run interference."

"No, Senpai, we've been through this before. I can't help you."

"Oh, come on Kusama. All I need is your name and then when I get to the date, I'll just tell them you can't make it. If I'm lucky, I'll get to kill two birds with one stone then, if you know what I mean?" Tsumori shot Nowaki a lecherous grin.

"No, Senpai," Nowaki said. Tusmori was going to be a good physician, but his looseness sometimes bothered the dark-haired man. "Find someone else's name to use."

A pretty nurse stuck her head through the open door. She smiled and blushed when she saw the two handsome interns.

"Dr. Kusama," she said shyly. "I know that you're getting ready to leave, but there's someone here to see you. They've requested you specifically and said it was an emergency."

Nowaki's brow raised in concern.

"They're in examination room 202."

"Thank you Sazuki-san. Please tell them I'll be with them in just a few minutes."

Nowaki slipped back into his white physician's smock, grabbed his stethoscope and his clipboard and headed off towards the room.

When the young doctor opened the door, there was no one sitting on the examination table. Peering around the door, however, Nowaki was shocked to see the two patients' waiting chairs occupied. In one of them sat a very distressed looking Miyagi You, balancing a large book bag precariously on his lap. Next to him was an almost equally miserable looking teenaged youth with dark honey colored hair and large guilty looking grey eyes.

Though they had never officially been introduced, Nowaki surmised that this must be Miyagi's "brat." The one that Hiroki ranted about so much, Shinobu Takatsuki.

Miyagi had an arm draped comfortably around the boy, but withdrew it when Nowaki came in.

"Ah, Miyagi Sensei," Nowaki said in surprised greeting. He tried to make his voice sound warm so that the boy would feel more at ease, but personally he was not fond of the senior professor. The man was always touching his Hiro-san and talking to the young doctor's boyfriend in a _lovey-dovey_ way that Nowaki did not approve of. Now Nowaki knew that Miyagi said this was all done in a spirit of jest and to rile his poor junior professor, but the dark-haired man refused to forget the time he had walked in and caught Miyagi on the verge of kissing a very vulnerable, Hiro-san.

Besides, the man was always dumping all his work on Nowaki's already stressed lover, taking up valuable time when Hiro-san should have been working on his own research.

"This is Shinobu Takatsuki," Miyagi offered, his voice sounding strained.

Nowaki looked at Shinobu with marked concern as the teen bowed his head. The poor boy really did look rather ill. "Well, Shinobu-san," Nowaki said, his voice soothing, "you are a bit older than most of my patients, but let's see what I can do for you. Where does it hurt?"

The teen's head dropped lower as Miyagi, interrupted, "Ahem. Um… this is a bit awkward Kusama… but actually the reason we're here is for me."

Nowaki's brow went up and he turned to Miyagi with a look of question on his handsome face.

Miyagi shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "You see, it's a bit of a delicate situation… and I didn't quite know who else I could talk to about this…"

Nowaki noticed that the senior professor's voice did not contain quite its usual bravado.

"I see, what seems to be the problem?" Nowaki asked.

"Normally, I would have just gone to a regular emergency room," Miyagi offered almost apologetically, "But Shinobu, wouldn't let me go without him and well…"

"I poisoned him!" Shinobu wailed unexpectedly, surprising both men, and then promptly broke down sobbing.

"Hush, brat," Miyagi said not unkindly as he ran one of his big hands through the crying teen's honeyed hair. Rather than comforting the boy however, this only seemed to make Shinobu cry harder. "It's really not as bad as all that," Miyagi said seeing the concerned look on Nowaki's face. "But as I said before, it is a bit awkward."

"Oh?" Nowaki said.

The professor carefully moved the satchel off his lap and Nowaki saw that man had been using the bag to conceal a very sizeable erection, tenting the front of his slacks.

"And what exactly is the problem?" a bemused Nowaki asked. Even though he had been working in the medical field for several years now with his physician's training, the young doctor felt himself blushing a bit.

Miyagi tried to sound nonchalant, "it won't go down."

"I poisoned him!" Shinobu wailed again. This time Miyagi pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to the still weeping boy. "Shhh," he said comfortingly.

Hiro-san was always telling Nowaki how perverted this odd couple was, but despite his dislike of Miyagi, watching the pair, Nowaki suddenly thought they seemed rather sweet.

"The whole situation is really rather humorous, if you think about it really," the senior professor said, shifting in his seat and trying to suppress a grimace. "You see, I had gotten something to give me a bit of extra stamina, not that I really need it of course…" The unflappable Miyagi's cheeks were actually getting a bit pink.

"You mean an aphrodisiac?" Nowaki asked

"Ah, yes… You know it was only intended to be used if I needed a bit of a pick me up, you see. Well, I'm obviously not eighteen anymore and…" The man coughed to cover his growing embarrassment. "I wanted to be sure I could keep up with Shinobu, energies being what they are at that age."

This brought a fresh wave of tears to Miyagi's young lover.

The professor wrapped an arm around the boy and offered Nowaki an apologetic shrug. "You're a younger man, Kusama; you know what I'm talking about."

The doctor ran one of his large hands through his shaggy hair and sighed. Nowaki did indeed understand. In fact, the longer he lived with Hiro-san, the more his energies seemed to increase rather than diminish. The man was so damn sexy.

"Well, it seems we got a bit overzealous and…"

"I poisoned him," Shinobu choked, repeating this phrase for the third time though his voice was much softer.

Nowaki stepped over to the teen and put one of his warm hands on the boy's thin shoulders. He was startled to note when he touched the professor's young lover that the slightest of shadows flickered across Miyagi's eyes. For some reason this made Nowaki smile.

"Tell me what happened," Nowaki gently encouraged the emotional youth.

"I found the pills in the cupboard when I was cooking breakfast this morning and I put a bunch of them in his lunch."

Nowaki turned his eyes back to the suffering Miyagi. "So you've been like this for how long?"

"About four hours," came Miyagi's tired response. "It started in the middle of my one o'clock lecture. Damned unfortunate too! I had to cut the class short, obviously, and we were in the middle of a really good discussion."

"Did you try?…"

"We've tried everything!" Miyagi suddenly shouted in exasperation.

Nowaki noticed the deep blush that immediately crept up the back of Shinobu's bowed neck, ran over the boy's ears and spilled into his wet cheeks.

"I still don't understand why you did this, Shinobu?" Miyagi said sadly.

The boy raised his head and looked seriously at his older lover, the torment clearly visible in his grey eyes. "I thought…" he stammered, "you're always telling me that you're not gay… how much it surprises you that we're together… I thought when I found those pills, that maybe you'd been using them all along because secretly I didn't really arouse you… That you really didn't want me and that you had to use these to humor me." He said these words between sobs and when he'd finished dropped his head and began crying again in earnest.

"Oh for fuck's sake Shinobu, how many times must we go over this?"

The boy's confession distressed the senior professor and he really wanted a cigarette.

"And must you be so open about everything, Shinobu-chin?" Miyagi was more than a little chagrined that his young lover had declared all of this in front of the Demon's boyfriend.

"Shut up old man!" the teen snuffled.

"Can you tell me what and how many you gave him?" Nowaki asked.

Now that Shinobu had had the chance to say what had been weighing on his heart, he seemed to be calming down considerably.

Miyagi reached into his bag and took out a bottle.

"Six," came Shinobu's despondent response.

"I probably didn't get anywhere near that much," Miyagi said, appearing more ill-at-ease than he had at any other time during this whole unfortunate incident. "I didn't eat my whole lunch," he confessed.

At this revelation, some of the sorrow left Shinobu's face and an expression more likened to indignation took its place. "Why not?" The honey-haired teen demanded. He said hotly, "I went to a lot of trouble making that and bringing it to you today!"

"Shinobu-chin, my darling," the professor said sincerely, "I love that you want to take care of me, but a man can only eat so much cabbage."

With this, the boy's face crumbled and he began weeping anew.

Uneasy about being a witness to such intimacies in the two men's relationship, Nowaki pretended to study the bottle. "Look," he said uncomfortably, "I'm going to go look a few things up. Priapism is not a problem we see much of in pediatrics. I'll be right back."

As soon as Nowaki left the room, Miyagi wrapped one of his big arms around Shinobu's still shaking shoulders and gently pulled the weeping boy down to him. "Stop your crying, brat," his deep voice soothed. He absentmindedly ran his large hands in comforting circles over the hiccupping youth's back as Shinobu carefully nestled his head against the outside of one of the older man's powerful thighs.

As Nowaki walked down the hall to the pharmacy to get his questions answered, he thought about how lucky he was to be in a relationship with a mature older man like Hiro-san. Really, there was no way he could ever endure a relationship like Miyagi and Shinobu's, one that was obviously filled with constant dramatics.

Once Shinobu had finally calmed down, Miyagi took his young lover's chin in one of his big hands and raised the boy's head.

Shinobu, now somewhat recovered, met Miyagi's gaze challengingly, fiercely anticipating some dry comment or humorous putdown about his emotional outburst.

Instead Miyagi surprised him, "Does it really bother you that much that I say I'm not gay?"

"Old man, why else would you love me?" came the boy's weary response.

Miyagi grunted, "I wish you'd clean the wax out of your ears you dumb pup. Why is it not enough for me to say I love you simply because it's you Shinobu-chin?"

The youth's grey eyes widened at the older man's words.

"How about this," Miyagi offered, "I will confess to you right now that I'm gay. Okay? A huge closet flamer if that will make you feel better… and if it means you will promise to never poison me again."

"Because, oi," the man suddenly winced in pain, "there is no way my cock can ever go through this again."

Just for a moment Miyagi saw a crack in the veneer of his young lover's fearsome shell.

Shinobu dropped his eyes. "Okay," he said softly. Then the boy reached up and put his hand gently on the side of his older lover's face.

Despite the pain it caused him, Miyagi leaned over slightly and kissed Shinobu deeply.

When they parted, the fire had returned to Shinobu's eyes. "Now that you've finally admitted you're a big homo, I'd better not catch you looking at any other guys. And that means you'd better fucking stop flirting with that damn Demon, too!"

Before the other man could respond, Nowaki who had been standing outside the door for a few minutes now, unwilling to come in and disrupt the lover's tender moment, issued a quiet, "ahem," and entered carrying two syringes.

"Okay," the raven-haired youth said, "I have good news. According to what I've found out, given the drug and the amount you took, you should begin to uhhh… relax… naturally before too much longer.

Just in case though, I'm going to give you two injections. One is a local anesthetic, that will help with the pain, and the other will facilitate… ummm… your softening."

Nowaki was a bit overwhelmed by the look of relief in Miyagi's eyes. The man really had been in the most excruciating pain for hours, but had been trying his best to be stoic so as not to further upset Shinobu.

After the young doctor had administered the injections, Miyagi said to Nowaki rather sheepishly. "Kusama-san, I appreciate all your help, but there's really no need for you to mention any of this to Kamijou, right?"

Now, Nowaki was well aware of patient/client confidentiality clauses, but it did not appear that Miyagi knew anything about them. Nowaki smiled sweetly at the senior professor. "Well, I'm sure Hiro-san would very much enjoy hearing this story and he is after all my lover. I really have a hard time keeping anything from him."

"Okay," Miyagi sighed defeated, he had no energy left to protest with. "What do you want?"

The sly puppy in Nowaki pounced.

"First, no more _lovey-dovey_ with Hiro-san at work."

This condition brought a satisfied look of approval to Shinobu's dear face as well. His regard for the doctor just went up tenfold.

Miyagi read the seriousness in Nowaki's blue eyes. "Okay," said the harried professor, realizing that his life had just been stripped of a significant amount of its pleasure. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Start doing more of your own damn work. I'm tired of seeing Hiro-san overwhelmed by everything you dump on him."

Miyagi recognized the protective edge in the tall man's voice and as he was currently in no shape to oppose Nowaki, he simply said, "agreed." He offered the giant his hand to seal the deal, suddenly anxious to get out of there and away from Kusama before the man added any more conditions.

After Miyagi and Shinobu left, Nowaki returned to the locker room and made ready to leave. He went looking for Hiroki and the lady Kamijou and found them in the children's ward. They had come there trying to find him.

Hiroki's mother was glowing. She was sitting in the center of a small circle of children reading a story. The youngsters were rapt, hanging on her every word.

Nowaki was touched by how happy she looked. "She was really going to make a most excellent grandmother."

Then the dark-haired man saw Hiro-san, he looked so cute in his street clothes, almost as young as Shinobu. He was leaning up against the wall, arms crossed, scowling at the scene playing out in front of him. "An excellent grandmother," Nowaki thought sadly, seeing his lover's expression, "but not anytime soon."

He sighed and went and joined Hiroki, leaning back against the wall next to him.

"You're late," Hiroki growled, "What was up that kept you so long?"

The young doctor just smiled at his petulant lover, "you have no idea."


	14. Chapter 14: Pandasan

**Chapter Fourteen: Pandasan**

For the largely female staff of Pandasan, Saturday nights were a highlight. It was not just because business was brisk and shifts flew by quickly, or because gratuities seemed to flow more easily and be higher. Primarily, it was because every Saturday night there was a possibility that _they _would show up.

Though there was no reserved seating at the restaurant, the waitresses always tried on Saturdays to keep the booth in the far right corner empty, regardless of the dinner traffic, until at least seven-thirty. If the couple had not shown up by then, the ladies would sigh and suddenly find themselves jealous of any coworker scheduled to work the shift of their next possible arrival.

Hiroki and Nowaki had no idea that their weekly appearance at Pandasan caused such a commotion and this was a good thing, because if they had known, they would have most likely, never returned.

The girls at Pandasan loved watching the two men together. It did not hurt that both of them were so handsome (even if the smaller of the two was a bit scowly), but more than that, they were just so cute in their devotion to one another and so delightfully awkward in their affection and how they tried to hide this.

It was not uncommon for the patrons around Nowaki and Hiroki's table to get extra attention, as the serving staff hovered nearby, always hoping to catch the two in that fleeting moment of a shared look or the inadvertent, then lingering touch. They were just so unconsciously adorable.

Behind the scenes in the restaurant, sighs and speculation were rampant. The excitement of the two men's appearance had been heightened in the last year with the discovery by the ladies that there was a series of Boy's Love novels containing the erotic exploits of two characters with exactly the same names as these favored Pandasan customers.

While some of the staff argued that there was no way there could have been any relationship between the real and fictional couples, others countered vehemently that the two must be the one in the same.

After all there were so many similarities in the descriptions of the characters with the men for a start. And then also, wasn't one of them a professor of literature or something like that? Who would be a more likely closet writer than this, especially if one had a wealth of personal experience to draw on?

Akikawa Yayoi, surely must simply be a pen name. It made perfect sense to many on the Pandasan staff that the auburn-haired partner in the pairing would be the author: it was always the quiet ones that were the biggest perverts.

Copies of Yayoi's books were passed among the employees of Pandasan so frequently that the cheap paperbacks soon fell apart. The electric possibilities surrounding Hiroki and Nowaki excited the ladies.

The accompanying fact that having devoured all Yayoi's BL novels, most of the servers could not look at the two men without picturing the most recently read scenario, made it impossible for some of the girls to wait on the couple without blushing fiercely or breaking into a nosebleed. Fortunately, the men were usually so intent on each other that the ladies' conditions were rarely noticed.

Sasaki Sakura, the proprietress of Pandasan had been carefully overseeing the evolution of Nowaki and Hiroki's relationship from the beginning and, being naturally maternal, tended to dote on the boys whenever they showed up. She was also a bit protective of the lover's privacy, making sure that her employees, in the throes of their yaoi enthusiasm and the intrigue of the men, did not become too annoying.

Given all this, it was with great delight that Sasaki and her staff welcomed the unexpected visit of the pair that Friday night. Sasaki's eyes widened in pleasure and surprise to find, for the first time in six years, that the couple would not be dining alone. She beamed as Nowaki cheerfully introduced Hiroki's mother to her and was delighted with the implications of this development in the men's life.

The lady Kamijou had been a bit put off at first by the two men's choice of restaurant. She had certainly been thinking they would be attending a much fancier venue, one more befitting the Kamijou position, but she could not remain peevish for long. Dear Kusama-san's face had glowed with such pleasure when he'd introduced her to Sasaki-san.

It also became quite clear to her within moments of arriving that Pandasan was fitted with a very youthful and attractive female staff: all of whom seemed to pay such obvious attention to her son and his roommate (though the blatantness of their interest bordered on the improper).

No wonder the boys so looked forward to coming here week after week.

After such a distressing and disappointing day with her son, this was the most hopeful sign Hiroki's mother had seen.

As fortune would have it, Hiroki and Nowaki's regular table was open. Sasaki escorted the trio over to this booth and after the lady Kamijou was settled, Hiroki slid in sandwiched between his mother and Nowaki.

"Hiroki, please take off your hat. You look like a vandal," his mother implored. Mrs. Kamijou sensing a golden opportunity wanted the charms of her son, such as they were, fully on display.

This time Hiroki sullenly complied.

When it came to deciding on what to order, it did not take long for the two men to make up their minds. Having frequented Pandasan so often, their regular choices by now had become solidified and rarely deviated, to the point that had Hiroki's mother not been with them, the pair might not have even been given menus.

The two men waited patiently for the lady Kamijou to make her selections. While Nowaki had decided against telling the Kamijous about his experience with Miyagi, he regaled them with tales from his day in the children's ward. He was pleased to notice that Hiroki, for once, really seemed to be paying attention to the other man's conversation.

When Nowaki in turn had asked Hiroki how his day had gone, the professor replied in his usual succinct manner, simply declaring the day "eventful."

Hearing the stress in Hiro-san's voice and in an attempt to indicate solidarity with his beleaguered lover, Nowaki slipped one of his hands under the table and over the professor's knee.

Hiroki frowned and reached down taking Nowaki's large hand in his own as he attempted to pry off the giant's grasp. However, in his currently fragile state, the sense of Nowaki's skin against his own, even just hand on hand, was simply too comforting. So, instead of pulling away, once he'd removed the dark-haired man's paw from his leg, Hiroki simply let their hands rest together between them, supported on the booth's seat, under the table.

Nowaki was surprised and exceedingly pleased by this turn of events: the big cherub's body practically hummed with pleasure.

"And how did you enjoy your day at the University, Kamijou-san?" Nowaki enquired enthusiastically.

Hiroki's mother shifted a bit uncomfortably in her seat and conceded that it had been "interesting."Then she brightened remembering the unexpected meeting with Akihiko.

"Oh Kusama-san, I did have the most serendipitous encounter with Usami Akihiko. You know, Hiroki-kun's oldest friend. The kind man has opened his home to the orphaned brother of a friend and the boy is attending the University. Takahashi Misaki is the boy's name, such a sweetie. He helped me find my way to Hiroki's office." The lady stopped there, blushing, as she remembered what else she'd found when she located her son's university lair.

"I guess Akihiko-kun brings poor Takahashi-san to and from the University every day. So considerate: The man has always been so kind." The woman turned to Hiroki. "That means that you must get to see him often. How is it that you never mentioned this to me before?"

"Actually, our paths rarely cross, unless Akihiko wants to borrow a book or something," Hiroki answered with a wince as Nowaki's big hand protectively tightened over his own. Once again the switch had been flipped: Nowaki's ebullient energy had dimmed and its buzz had become decidedly dangerous.

"Do you know Akihiko very well Kusama-san?" the lady Kamijou inquired. "I'm so sorry I didn't ask you before, but I suppose I simply assumed you must, because the two of you are both Hiroki's dearest friends."

Before Nowaki had the chance to respond, Hiroki growing desperate to extricate his hand from the giant's increasingly tense grip interjected, "well, Nowaki and Akihiko don't really travel in the same circles. I mean the worlds of literature and medicine are a bit far apart."

As soon as these words left his mouth, Hiroki was suddenly worried that his mother might ask, that if these worlds were so distant, how it was then, that he and Nowaki had met?

Fortunately, the lady was consistent in her obtuseness and she did not question this faulty logic on her son's part. Hiroki sped forward, "but still, I promised  Nowaki we'd find a way to all spend some time together soon, so they can get to know each other better."

When Nowaki heard Hiro-san's pleading emphasis on the word promise, he immediately realized how tightly he was now holding on to the smaller man's hand. His cheeks grew hot and he was chagrined at how short his memory was regarding the problems of his jealousy: the bruise from last night had not even begun to fade and yet, here he was doing the same thing again, despite his lover's pledge.

As soon as he loosened his grip, Hiroki withdrew his hand and shot the repentant Nowaki a fierce glare.

"Well," said the lady Kamijou, blissfully oblivious to the complex dynamics operating between the two men alongside her. "Kusama-san, if you and Akihiko do get together, perhaps between the two of you, you can persuade your roommate to come home for a visit. You and Akihiko would be welcome to come as well, there's plenty of room at our estate. I tried to entice Hiroki-kun to commit to such a trip earlier today, but…" the lady sighed, "I'm afraid my son is unconvinced."

"Oh?" said Nowaki. He was feeling much calmer now, despite Hiroki's mother's ridiculous suggestion of him going anywhere with that damned Akihiko. He found himself growing curious again (apparently another lesson he could not bring himself to retain) at the lady's mention of the family estate. The professor rarely talked of his home, so his boyfriend was of course intrigued.

Just then Hiroki's cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his jeans. Hiroki ignored it.

"I think Hiroki-kun is afraid to come home for fear that we will not let him leave without a new bride alongside him," the lady Kamijou laughed. Then growing serious she asked the young doctor, "Did my son show you the packet with all the possible marriage prospects that his father and I sent him last month?"

"No…" Nowaki said softly looking closely at the man seated beside him, his usually expressive eyes suddenly unreadable. "Hiro-sa… Hiroki did not… I am afraid that there are things in his life… that my roommate prefers to keep to himself."

"Well, Kusama-san," the lady said slyly, "perhaps you should ask him to share this with you. I mean after all, there are so many lovely ladies to choose from and it would not hurt for you to find a good wife to look after you too. Besides, you are so wonderful with children; you would make such an excellent father…"

Hiroki's phone suddenly started vibrating again and this time (as the conversation had taken such a particularly unwelcome direction) the auburn-haired man jumped to answer it.

"I really need to get this call," Hiroki said breathlessly. "Nowaki, would you please let me out, I'd like take it privately and could you order for me while I am gone?"

Nowaki said nothing, but got up to let the older man out. He watched with a somber expression as his lover stepped out of the restaurant and onto the busy sidewalk in front of Pandasan.

"Kusama-san," the proprietress, Sasaki said cheerfully as she returned to the table to take the trio's order herself. "Will it be the usual for you and Kamijou-san tonight?"

"Yes please Sasaki-san," the dark-haired man answered, his voice strangely subdued.

After taking the lady Kamijou's order, Sasaki said to Hiroki's mother, her eyes twinkling, "You must be so very proud of your boys, working so hard and accomplishing so much."

The lady Kamijou was slightly taken aback by the familiarity of the hostess and by the strange use of the work "your" in the description of her son and his friend.

"Have you known Hiroki and Kusama-san long?" Hiroki's mother asked uncomfortably.

"I should say!" Sasaki laughed. "They have been coming in here almost every week for the last six years."

"Really?" the lady Kamijou asked. She was perplexed.

She knew that the two men had been friends for a while, but Hiroki had not really even mentioned Nowaki to her until about three years ago. It was not long after that Hiroki told her he had taken Nowaki as a roommate, and it was another year past this, before his mother ever had the chance to even speak with Nowaki.

In fact, this in itself only occurred as a result of a miscalculation on her son's part. Hiroki had asked his lover to answer his phone because he'd been tied up at the time (literally) and had been expecting an important call from Miyagi.

Nowaki was not really paying any attention to the two ladies exchange. He was too busy watching his boyfriend through the restaurant's front window. Hiro-san was pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of Pandasan, his lovely face seemingly growing more distressed with each step. Suddenly Hiro-san stopped and just stood staring at his phone. Nowaki watched with growing concern as his partner snapped his phone shut with a look of tremendous grief on his face.

He saw Hiro-san reenter the restaurant a few moments later, but rather than return to the table, the man had turned the other way, moving in the direction of the men's room.

As soon as Hiroki disappeared from his field of vision, all of a sudden, Nowaki began to hear what Sasaki was saying to Hiro-san's mother.

"Actually it has been a little more than six years if you count the time before Kusama-san went to America. Poor Kamijou-san, he was so sad. But for that whole year he still kept coming here every Saturday night."

"Really?" Nowaki asked. Hiroki had never told him about this.

"Ah, yes. He would sit just there," Sasaki said, pointing at a nearby table. "At first we offered him this one, as that was where you most often sat, even then, but he would never accept it. No, he just took that other table, reading the same book every week, the same page even, eating and watching this table. Did you not know Nowaki , that he comes here still. He does the same thing on the Saturday nights when you work, though now he brings a different book with him every time."

The lady Kamijou's expression had been growing increasingly dismayed as simultaneously, Nowaki's had grown increasingly radiant.

Nowaki felt as though his heart was going to burst with happiness. While Hiroki had expressed (grudgingly) at various times that Nowaki's residency in America had been difficult for him, the raven-haired youth had really no idea of how deeply his lover had been affected.

What did this say of Hiroki's feelings for Akihiko, was it even possible that any real love for the author remained if the man had demonstrated this kind of waiting for Nowaki? All of Nowaki's earlier feelings of jealousy and disappointment were swept away and he basked in the joy of this new knowledge.

"Excuse me one minute, please," the tall man said, jumping up from the table. "But I need to use the..." He blushed slightly and motioned across the restaurant towards where the restrooms were located.

Hiroki's mother waved Nowaki away with a preoccupied hand.

Sasaki watched the dark-haired man leave the table and the eyes all of all her female staff, and a few customers, follow. She said to the lady Kamijou with a slightly undignified giggle, "it is always so fun to watch the reaction of our new employees, when they find out your boys are taken."

"Taken?" Hiroki's mother grasped at her last hope, not wanting to acknowledge the alternative. "You mean Hiroki and Kusama-san bring their dates here as well?"

Sasaki felt her cheeks flush as she looked into the desperate eyes of the lady Kamijou. She was suddenly aware of the enormity of her mistake. But when she had seen the three come in so happily with each other, knowing how obvious the men's attachment was, she had simply assumed…

Trying frantically to rectify her terrible error, Sasaki stammered, "Oh, yes, all the time. Now if you will please excuse me Kamijou-san, I have lingered here too long, I'm afraid. I really must go and attend to my other guests."

The hostess fled, leaving Hiroki's mother alone, floundering with her thoughts.

As she moved away from the table, glancing back and seeing Hiroki's mother's devastated expression, Sasaki felt a tremendous sympathy for the lady. She remembered the day when she had walked in on her own daughter unexpectedly, catching her in the sweaty embrace of her (female) college "roommate." Now the girls had a lovely life together, and Sasaki's loving support, but the woman remembered how blind she had convinced herself to be up until that fateful moment.

Sasaki cursed herself and hoped she had not just lost her two favorite customers.


	15. Chapter 15: Novel Experiences

Chapter Fifteen: Novel Experiences

When Hiroki answered the second call from his father standing on the street outside of Pandasan, he could immediately hear the low boiling anger in the man's voice.

"Did you not get my text?" the senior Kamijou hissed.

"Yes, sir, I did," said Hiroki softly.

"Then why did you not pick up immediately the first time I called?"

"Mother, Nowaki and I are out having dinner." Hiroki knew he was inciting trouble, but he added, "It was not convenient to take your call at that moment and, in fact, it is actually not that convenient to be talking right now."

Hiroki had begun to pace nervously in front of the restaurant. What the hell was he thinking speaking to his father like this?

"What, exactly are you telling me?" his father asked his tone severe. "Do you mean to say that you are out flouncing around in public in front of your mother? What in god's name are you thinking? Didn't I specifically instruct you to get rid of any complications while she was visiting? Are you a complete idiot? Can you not even see to carry out this one simple directive?"

The sharpness of his father's voice cut Hiroki as cleanly as a razor, but for some reason, tonight, instead of sorrow, anger welled from these wounds.

"First of all father," Hiroki said gravely, addressing him with the forbidden title, "I have never flounced."

Though the hand holding Hiroki's phone had begun to shake slightly, the professor's voice was incredibly steady.

"Second, Nowaki is not a complication. He is my partner and it is his home and his life as well as mine. I refuse to ask the man who loves me to leave our home, for even one minute, to accommodate the wishes of a father who cannot."

"Feel better now?" the senior Kamijou asked coldly.

"What?" Hiroki was shocked by his father's response.

"Your grand declaration. Did you practice it beforehand? This is life Hiroki, not one of your miserable novels." As usual the man stole the strength from the words that Hiroki had fought so hard to articulate. He realized that he was locked in a battle he could never win. He simply could not make his heart as cold as his father's.

Discounting the unrecognized confession of his lecture, Hiroki quietly asserted. "I have done my best to be discreet. She still does not know."

"Hah," his father barked harshly, "Given what I have observed, discretion is not one of your virtues."

Then the senior Kamijou's voice dropped again in both volume and temperature. "I hold you entirely responsible for any additional suffering incurred by this family." With that the line went dead.

Hiroki stopped in his tracks. He stood for a moment staring rather stupidly at his phone. "What about my suffering?"

The force of his father's disgust, jarred sobs from the hidden shelves of Hiroki's heart. Snapping his phone shut, Hiroki knew that there was no way he was about to stand out here on the street and cry like a… Like a what?... A fairy?

Hiroki gathered himself as much as he could, pushed back into the restaurant and headed for the men's room.

Hiroki had been sitting in a closed stall on one of the toilets for about ten minutes. He had managed to fold himself up into a compact ball, knees pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around knees. It had been a long time since he had occupied this particular pose. Not since middle school in fact: that one miserable semester that a new transfer student, Satou Ryuu, had suddenly taken to bullying him.

Hiroki had endured the boy's torments for an entire semester, avoiding him as much as he could, until in the end, he had snapped. Though Ryuu had been almost twice Hiroki's size, with his background in Kendo, the auburn-haired boy had picked up a stick and had beaten the other youth badly. He'd been kicked off the Kendo team as a result.

Hiroki remembered how worried he had been of his father's wrath for such disgraceful behavior, but the man had not even seemed to mind that much. In fact, as Hiroki recalled the scene now, the large man looming over his slight and bloodied son, it was perhaps the only time he'd ever felt that his father might have been even just a little bit proud of him.

Looking back, Hiroki supposed that the senior Kamijou had guessed at his son's nature, long before Hiroki himself was entirely aware of his own inclinations. As he grappled with the emotions brought on by these realizations, the tears that he had felt rising up in him out on the street evaporated in the heat of his anger and his sorrow. Their absence made the man feel strangely hollow.

"Hiro-san?"

Hiroki started at hearing Nowaki tentatively call his name. "What was that big dork doing calling out for him like that, in a place like this?" Hiroki sat perfectly still and tried to make himself even smaller. Maybe if he was quiet, Nowaki would go away.

Nowaki scanned the small space. The bathroom appeared to be empty. No one was standing at the sinks or the urinals. He stooped down and looked under the short row of stalls at the end of the room. He didn't see any feet. Still, Nowaki's Hiro-san radar told him that the man was in here somewhere.

The tall youth glanced back at the door and noticed that there was a bolt lock on the inside of it (so that the staff could clean uninterrupted during business hours). Nowaki's long fingers reached out and locked the door.

Then, he moved over and began going down the short row of stalls. The first two were open; the last one however, was locked.

This was one of those moments when Nowaki blessed the gods for his height. He hooked his fingers on the edge of the door and peered easily over.

Sure enough, there was Hiro-san, but… Nowaki was incredibly dismayed: he could not recall the last time he'd seen his lover look so small or so sad. That Hiro-san should appear thus, while his own heart overflowed with the joy brought on by Sasaki's revelation, filled the giant with a sudden almost unbearable pain.

"Hiro-san?" Nowaki ventured softly.

Hiroki looked up startled by the sound of Nowaki's voice suddenly overhead. "Gaaaahhh!" he cried. "What the hell are you doing there?"

It brought the raven-haired man a moment of relief to see Hiroki's usual irritation push aside some of his previous despondence.

"I was looking for you. I saw you through the window and it seemed like you were upset. What are you doing there? Are you okay?"

Hiroki could read the concern clearly in the blue eyes peering at him over the stall door.

"I was thinking!" Hiroki snapped, terribly self-conscious that Nowaki had seen him in this humiliating posture. "Can't a man get a moment to think in private around here?" Hiroki got up indignantly and pushed his way out of the stall. The strength of the stall door's swing caught Nowaki and knocked the tall man backwards.

"What were you thinking anyway, Nowaki? What if I had been doing something gross? How embarrassing!"

Nowaki followed Hiroki over to the sinks. Even though he had not done anything, the professor still felt compelled to wash his hands.

"Hiro-san," said Nowaki, talking to his lover's reflection in the mirror, "we live together… We do things to each other… It's not like there's much of you I am unfamiliar with."

Hiroki turned, splashing water on the younger man behind him. "Baka! That's disgusting!"

"I know," said Nowaki giving Hiroki one of his sly puppy smiles.

Hiroki uncharacteristically wiped his dripping hands on his shirt. "Ugggh! I have no idea what you are thinking and I don't want to know," Hiroki grimaced reaching for the door. He pulled the handle. "Why wouldn't the stupid thing open?"

At the same moment he was entertaining this question, a pair of strong arms wrapped around his tense frame almost pulling Hiroki off his feet. Nowaki buried his head in the back of his boyfriend's neck and began kissing it hungrily.

"Nowaki!" the smaller man barked, "what the fuck are you doing? What if someone comes in?"

"The door's locked Hiro-san," the inky-haired youth whispered into Hiroki's ear.

"I am not about to do something as low as having sex in a men's restroom, you pervert!" (Although, if Hiroki was truly honest about his past, if this did happen it would not exactly be a novel experience). The older man tried furiously to wriggle out of his gorilla's grasp, only to end up somehow facing his boyfriend, his back pressed against the tiled wall.

Nowaki caught his Hiro-san's hands and pinned them up over his petite lover's head. Hiroki was still struggling to get out from under Nowaki's grasp, but it was to no avail. Nowaki leaned in and his lips caught Hiroki's. He pushed his tongue inside, tangling it with the other man's. He licked the roof of Hiro-san's mouth.

Hiroki's struggles suddenly became more violent at this invasion, but only for a few moments. Then they slowed and gradually ceased all together. When he finally stopped resisting, Hiroki felt the other man pouring his love into him, the strength of it flooding his body, pooling in all of his hollow places.

When Nowaki finally broke off the kiss, Hiroki looked stunned into the bottomless depths of his boyfriend's dark blue eyes.

"What the fuck's gotten into you, Nowaki? He panted.

"Hiro-san, why didn't you tell me? Nowaki gasped, equally breathless.

"Tell you what?" The professor had no idea what the big lunatic was talking about.

Nowaki released his lover's wrists and moved down gently capturing Hiroki's face between his large hands. "Why didn't you ever tell me you came here and waited for me the whole year I was gone. Why haven't you ever told me you wait for me even still?"

"What!" cried Hiroki, his large eyes bulging and his face suddenly turning thirteen shades of crimson. "Who told you that?.. I mean don't be ridiculous!" the horrified man exclaimed.

"Sasaki-san told me," Nowaki purred, a dreamy look coming into his cobalt eyes. "It was so beautiful. She said you would sit across from our table reading the same book every week." A slightly puzzled expression flitted across Nowaki's brow. "Why didn't you sit at our table Hiro-san?"

Hiroki dropped his eyes. He couldn't believe Sasaki had told Nowaki. God he was such an idiot. He wondered how many other closet romantics had ever suffered the indignant demise of being drowned by the depths of their own sappiness? Hiroki had every intention of denying everything and returning later that night to burn Pandasan to the ground. Then he glanced up at the dark head leaning over him.

Hiroki could not remember ever seeing Nowaki look so happy. And this was a guy who looked idiotically content most of the time.

The auburn-haired man looked off to the side. "It was easier for me to imagine us there," he said quickly, "if I could see the table. Besides…," he mumbled awkwardly, "I could never sit there without you."

"Oh, Hiro-san, I love you so much!" Nowaki said beaming. He picked up the smaller man and spun the two of them around together.

"Dumb-ass," the older man cried, "put me down! I'm getting dizzy!"

Surprisingly, the giant immediately complied, setting Hiroki's backside of the edge of one of the sinks.

He draped his arms over the other man's shoulders and pressed his forehead against his professor's perpetually furrowed brow.

"Hiro-san?"

"Yes," Hiroki growled, scowling up at the big dork.

"Can I ask you one more question?"

"Maybe," came the older man's gruff response.

"What was it you were reading all the time when you would come here?"

"No."

"No, what?" Nowaki asked, question filling his cobalt eyes.

"No, dumb-ass, I refuse to quote poetry to you while standing in a public toilet. I can think of nothing less romantic…"

Watching Nowaki's eyes widen, realizing what he had just said, Hiroki felt like an even bigger dumb-ass himself.

"You were reading poetry and thinking of me?" Nowaki breathed.

"Look don't go getting all school-girl on me okay, Nowaki. It was a moment of weakness." Yeah, a moment of weakness that lasted an entire goddamn year, Hiroki cursed under his breath. God , could Nowaki's eyes possibly get any more sparkly?

"Hiro-san," Nowaki said, unfazed. He pulled back slightly to better look at his lover. "That's so beautiful. It's just like in one of the novels you read." The dark-haired youth leaned back in and this time caught his lover's mouth and kissed it very gently. Hiroki could taste the joy on Nowaki's lips.

Hiroki thought about Nowaki's statement in contrast to the earlier words of his father and suddenly he smiled.

That smile was all Nowaki needed. He pressed himself between Hiroki's thighs rubbing up against the other man's groin. One of his large hands slid down the back of Hiroki's jeans cupping the curve of one of the smaller man's firm cheeks and lifting him up off the ledge of the sink. Nowaki's other hand crept up the back of Hiroki's shirt, stroking his well defined shoulders.

Nowaki was surprised that Hiro-san did not immediately get angry with him for these advances. Instead, his boyfriend's large hazel eyes stared at him curiously. "What do you think you're doing now?" the older man asked almost shyly, he blushed and bit his lip in anticipation of his lover's response.

Nowaki gave his Hiro-san a joyfully wicked smile and said, "Getting ready to write a scene for a whole other kind of novel."

**If you'd like to read the sex scene that happened after this, but is not included in this story, please check out "The Spatula Test: The Missing Lemon" Rated M.**


	16. Chapter 16: Touch

**Hello Lovelies,**

**Here are the next four chapters. A couple of these may feel a bit angsty, but it will git back to light and lovely in the end. Only two more chapters to post. **

**Dear OneWingedEggplant and JemCarstairs, You have inspired me. I will write a oneshot M rated lemon for the Pandasan Men's Room Romp and post it separately. Sorry to disappoint with lack of tart citrus goodness at the present. **

**Still, I hope you all enjoy and thank you so much for the comments. I love them.**

**Sincerely,**

**Cerberus**

**Chapter Sixteen: Touch**

Two of Pandasan's eagle-eyed waitresses had noticed Hiroki and Nowaki's separate migration to the men's room. The braver of the pair, crept up and put her ear to the door. Her eyes grew wide and a small trickle of blood immediately began to leak from one of her delicate fangirl nostrils.

"I hope they locked the door," she snorted to her cohort, while pinching her nose shut to stop the flow.

This was exactly the thing the women of Pandasan had been hoping for: an illicit encounter in a public location like this (with your mother seated only slightly less than nearby). This was pure Yayoi, destined for the author's next BL novel. If such a scenario appeared, the speculation would finally be put to rest.

They needed to make sure that this moment of the muse was not disrupted.

To ensure this, one of the girls went and retrieved the bright orange "CAUTION-CLEANING" sign and placed it at the front of the hallway, leading from the restaurant to the lavatories. The other brought out a mop and bucket, and began intently swabbing the floor.

By the time Hiroki and Nowaki finished their men's room calisthenics and had regained enough composure to re-enter the world, the hallway of Pandasan had to be the cleanest in all of Japan.

"Excuse me," Nowaki said, almost bumping into the mop girl as he exited. Beholding the young lady's flushed face, a look of concern flitted across his eyes. "Are you okay Miss? You look a bit feverish."

The mop wielder's partner in crime picked up the caution sign and swept past Nowaki, somehow simultaneously grabbing along the way her swooning coworker, the mop, and its bucket.

The two girls retreated giggling hysterically back through the staff entrance to the kitchen.

Nowaki shook his head in confusion and shrugged. It was times like this he was glad he liked men, because he knew there was no way in hell, he would ever understand women.

Mrs. Kamijou was unaware of how much time had elapsed since the two men had left the table. Sasaki's words and the resulting epiphany had induced in the woman something akin to a state of shock.

Her mind, which should have been swarming with thoughts and questions, had suddenly gone surprisingly blank. The only things that eventually materialized with any clarity were two phrases: _this can't be happening, _and _this can't be true._ These two refrains married and multiplied, filling the poor woman's head.

A server brought their dishes to the table and this activity intruded into the lady's desperate meditation.

She looked up at the waitress with shocked eyes.

"Is there anything else you need Ma'am?" the girl inquired.

"No, everything is just fine," the lady Kamijou said, smiling weakly."

"Everything is just fine…"

The woman realized she needed to pull herself together. This was no place to fall apart or cause a scene.

"Everything is just fine…"

How often had she said these words to herself over the last twenty-nine years, watching her son grow up.

This phrase suddenly joined the track that previously been looping through her thoughts. _This can't be happening, this can't be true, everything is fine,_ suddenly became Hiroki's mother's new mantra.

Just then, Nowaki appeared before her. The tall man was absolutely glowing.

"Sorry I was gone so long. They were doing some maintenance and I had to wait." Nowaki glanced off to the side uncomfortably, as he added one more entry to the list of falsehoods that he had told Hiro-san's mother over the past two days.

In addition to wielding powerful facial expressions (like she had earlier that day with Miyagi), the lady Kamijou over the course of her life had also become quite adept at suppressing them. Living with Hiroki's father, the woman had long ago perfected the ability to put on a bright face, regardless of the circumstance. It was an essential skill, one she employed now.

She smiled at Nowaki as he slid into the booth next to her.

"Everything looks so good," Nowaki exclaimed, "suddenly I am so hungry!" His joyful gaze danced over the surface of their table.

"I wonder where my son has gotten to?" Hiroki's mother said absently.

While the food looked lovely, the lady found that she had absolutely no appetite.

"I think he might still be on the phone."

The tall youth's cheeks blushed a little brighter. He desperately wanted to stop lying to Hiro-san's mother. However, this lie seemed preferable to telling the lady Kamijou that her son would rejoin them, once he'd recovered from the fantastic fuck they'd just shared in the Pandasan's toilets.

"Kusama-san."

Nowaki startled at the lady's voice, suddenly worried that she could read his thoughts.

Instead though Hiroki's mother asked, "Sasaki-san mentioned that you had gone to America. What did you go there for?"

"Oh," Nowaki said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I went for medical training. It was a two year program, but fortunately I was able to get it completed in one."

"That must have been very hard work," the lady offered seeming impressed.

"It was, but it was worth it to get back to… to get back."

"Hiro-san was the one who told me to go." Nowaki paused. "He feels very strongly that a person should follow his passions… I am grateful for his encouragement…"

The youth shook his dark head and smiled. "Even when he can't remember giving it."

Nowaki said this last sentence almost to himself, but Hiroki's mother had caught part of it. "What was that?" she asked.

"Oh, when I asked Hiro-san if I should go to America or stay here, he told me I would be an idiot not to go." The giant smiled, remembering. "But he was working on his thesis when I asked him, and to be honest, he was so immersed in what he was doing, he didn't even remember giving me this advice."

Nowaki looked chagrined. "I'm afraid I wasn't the best at staying in touch while I was gone. I was working so hard to finish and get back here. And since he didn't remember our conversation… Poor-Hiro-san just thought I had disappeared."

"How awful ," Hiroki's mother said.

"Ah, yes," Nowaki agreed. "It was a terrible misunderstanding. We almost stopped being…friends because of it… Lucky for me, Hiro-san has such a wonderfully forgiving heart."

The lady Kamijou looked incredulously at Nowaki. He did not seem to be joking. There were many words (depending on how she was feeling towards him at the time) that Hiroki's mother might use to describe her son, but forgiving was definitely not one of them.

Just then Hiroki approached them, making a show of complaining about "stupid Miyagi's phone calls" and the senior professor's "lack of respect for other's free time."

Hiroki's mother eyed her son. He looked strangely relaxed and, though nowhere near as radiant as his roommate, Hiroki appeared (even in the midst of his Miyagi rant) to look almost happy.

Nowaki started to slide out of the booth to let the older man in, but Hiroki said, "no need to get out again Nowaki, you just stay there and we'll switch plates." He settled in next to the young doctor.

Mrs. Kamijou watched as each took the service in front of them and went to hand it to the other.

As they exchanged plates, the lover's hands touched.

Now, one would think that given the interaction the pair had just so recently shared, that something as simple as the sensation of fingers brushing fingers would be negligible, but it was not.

There was an intimacy in that simple touch that stunned both men with its potency.

Their eyes met for only a moment, as the power of their connection thrilled them, before simultaneously dropping their gaze and looking away. A new flame of color ignited in their already fevered cheeks.

It was moments like this that elated the ladies of Pandasan and Mrs. Kamijou had just witnessed it clearly.

Any doubt that Hiroki's mother might have had about her son was suddenly gone.


	17. Chapter 17: Tsunami

**Chapter Seventeen: Tsunami**

Throughout their dinner Mrs. Kamijou had been pleasant but strangely quiet.

On the way back to the apartment, Nowaki asked if she was alright, his voice rich with concern. She managed to smile and told him she was fine, just a headache perhaps. It had been quite a lot of excitement for an old lady who was used to a much quieter life.

She was surprised that even her usually oblivious son, Hiroki also seemed to notice she was out of sorts, and he shocked her by offering to make her a cup of tea when they got home.

As they walked down the busy streets, Mrs. Kamijou surreptitiously cast glances at the two men walking side by side in quiet comfort with each other. She wondered if she were not there, if they might have behaved differently?

As people thronged past the three travelers, Hiroki's mother noticed others, couples in particular: ladies giggling and men swaggering, here an arm around a shoulder, there two hands clasped together.

In an instant, the blankness she'd felt in the restaurant was suddenly gone and now a tsunami of questions and emotions crashed within her, overwhelming the beaches of her mind.

Did her son and Kusama ever act the same way the couples they were passing did? Looking at her boy, his face serious and brow furrowed even now, beneath the rim of his knitted cap, she could not imagine it.

What if they did?

A knot of fear unexpectedly tied itself in her stomach. What if someone saw them and tried to hurt them?

While the world was certainly changing, even she knew that there were still great risks in being open about such things. The sudden possibility someone might want to harm her son caused her more pain than she could have imagined.

And what about Hiroki's job? If people knew at the University, would it keep him from advancing?

She thought about that perverted older professor. Had he done something to her Hiroki-kun to make him this way?

Then Nowaki's voice broke through the waves of her thoughts and she clung to it like a lifeline, pulling herself back into the present.

"Hiro-san, please." Nowaki was tugging gently on Hiroki's sleeve.

"No," the older man said simply, in his usual tone of annoyance.

"Please, Hiro-san," the tall youth entreated again, reversing the words as though there was some magic order that would unlock the other's acquiescence.

Hiroki sighed, weakening. Resisting Nowaki, in any way, had never been one of his strengths. "I don't know why you insist on this ridiculous act of self-torture, Nowaki. You know you aren't going to get one. The shop isn't even open at this hour."

"I know," said Nowaki, a note of hope in his voice. He could tell Hiro-san was weakening.

"Mom," Hiroki asked suddenly, "Do you feel up to making a slight detour?"

"Ah yes, that would be fine Hiroki-kun," she answered. Mrs. Kamijou was in fact a little curious about the two men's exchange and was also desperate at this point, for any diversion from her thoughts.

"Really, Kamijou-san?" Nowaki asked. She could tell he was worried for her and in spite of her misgivings about what she had learned that night, she still felt warmed by the raven-haired man's gentle spirit.

"Certainly, Kusama-san," she said forcing a bright smile.

Within a few moments, the two boys led her off the busy thoroughfare. After a couple quick turns, the three of them ended up on a much quieter street in front of a small shop. The store's front window was full of wood shavings, straw, and sleeping puppies.

Watching Hiroki and Nowaki's reactions to the display, Mrs. Kamijou was struck by how different they were: one man tall and dark, the other slight and much lighter. Kusama was open, where Hiroki was closed, bright, where her son was dark. Hiroki lived in the realm of the mind, while Nowaki dwelt in the realm of the body.

How had they ever found each other and what on earth could bring such polar opposites together for a time as long as six years?

She thought of the conversation with Pandasan's hostess: of her impossibly impatient son returning to the same restaurant week after week, to stare at the table where he and his… his lover had sat, hoping for him to return. It was impossible for Hiroki's mother to imagine her son waiting even a week, let alone a whole year.

She recalled Hiroki's state during that time. She'd known he was miserable, but she thought it was due the breakup with his mysterious girlfriend. "Baka," she chided herself.

Knowing her son's interminable pride, she wondered how he could have returned to Kusama Nowaki after they had had such a great misunderstanding regarding his absence. This action was beyond her comprehension of her offspring.

She turned her eyes outward again, away from her thoughts and looked at Kusama-san.

Nowaki was like a child, his eyes round with pleasure beholding the small furry dreamers in the pet shop window, contorted around each other in ways that only a puppy's loose limbs could manage.

Hiroki on the other hand, seeing the pups, crinkled his nose in distaste, and looked very put upon to have to be standing here.

Then Mrs. Kamijou noticed Hiroki's eyes move up and light upon Nowaki's face. As he looked at the tall man, she saw just a flash of Kusama-san's enchantment fill her son's own eyes. That is until Hiroki noticed his mother watching him. Then immediately, the curtain to her son's thoughts dropped and he renewed his scowl.

Hiroki crossed his arms and began the lecture he gave every time he found himself standing at this shop with Nowaki. "As I said before Nowaki, you know you can't have one. I don't want any pets in the apartment." The thought of tiny canine teeth on the pages of even one of his precious books was more than he could handle; besides, he already had one giant puppy in the house.

"I know Hiro-san," Nowaki said, just a hint of sadness in his voice.

"How long do we have to stand here looking at these dumb things anyway? They're not even doing anything, they're just sleeping," Hiroki complained.

"I like watching them sleep," Nowaki said dreamily, "they seem so peaceful. It's lovely." His gaze shifted from the puppies to his Hiro-san.

Hiroki caught the meaning in Nowaki's blue eyes: he was always chiding the younger man about watching him sleep at home. He looked away feigning annoyance. "I will never understand your preoccupation with fluffiness," Hiroki grumbled.

Standing to the side of the pair, observing them, the lady Kamijou heard the growl in Hiroki's voice but she could tell that her son really didn't mean it. With her new awareness, the woman was suddenly taken a bit aback, realizing how much like an old married couple the two men sounded.

"I think they're so cute," Nowaki sighed, gazing back down at the snuggling fuzziness.

Hiroki snorted. "Well, your definition of cute, I feel, leaves a lot to be desired."

Neither man was looking at the other directly now, but they were staring at each other in the reflection of the long window. Nowaki caught Hiro-san's mirrored gaze and said in a firm quiet voice, the smile never leaving his face, "well, regardless of your assessment of my definition, I am quite convinced of my designations."

Hiroki was caught off guard by Nowaki's unexpected eloquence and the significance of his statement. He dropped his gaze and pretended to adjust his cap, pushing it down lower over his eyes, his cheeks flushing slightly pink. "Have you seen enough yet? I'm cold." His voice sounded slightly defeated.

Mrs. Kamijou was surprised to see Kusama-san's smile only grow wider at her son's complaints. "Yes, Hiro-san," he said gently, "let's go home."

Back at the apartment, Hiroki did immediately and unexpectedly set about making tea. After receiving her cup, under the guise of her headache, Mrs. Kamijou opted to retreat to her room. She needed to get her thoughts straight.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands nervously grasping the fabric of the nightdress she had changed into.

Considering the revelation she'd had, combined with her (albeit limited) existing knowledge of homosexuality, so many things in her son's life, moments that seemed at the time insignificant; subtle comments made by others; tiny incongruencies, came into focus and began, for the first time, to make sense.

She wondered if Akihiko knew about her Hiroki and then suddenly gasped as she considered that he too might be… She couldn't bring herself to say the word yet, but it made sense.

She thought about her son's dogged attachment to the man, the fact that Akihiko was not married either, and about his young housemate. Then she thought of Hiroki-kun's senior professor and the boy she had caught him with that afternoon. It seemed to her in that moment, that while she was blissfully going about her life in the shelter of her home, that overnight the world had become one large gay conspiracy.

Her face turned red as she thought about the comments she'd made the previous night at dinner. No wonder Kusama-san had seemed upset.

She wondered if her husband suspected. Of course he did, she reasoned, he was a man of the world, far more aware of its complexities than she. It would explain so much. The distance between father and son: they both were such proud men.

It offered her an understanding of why Hiroki had left home as he did, the reason he refused to accept any assistance from his family. It revealed to her the reason, it seemed, that on the rare occasions her son had returned home that her husband would inevitably be called away on some sudden business meeting.

It gave her an explanation for the senior Kamijou's willingness to allow Hiroki to pursue his interest in literature rather than push his son to work in the family's company. She had always considered this sudden change of her husband's heart strange, since from the time their Hiroki-kun had been born, for years his father had talked of little else, than their business and his son's future.

She tried to remember when her husband had stopped discussing such plans. It seemed to have happened in Hiroki's late teens, just before he completed high school. The lady Kamijou found herself wondering how her husband had found out, perhaps what he had seen. She could not imagine the exchange that might have occurred between father and son: her husband could at times be a very hard man.

Mrs. Kamijou was surprised as she considered all of these things, to feel a rising sense of anger at all of these men and their deceptions and withholdings. She acknowledged that perhaps she was guilty of committing a few deceptions herself, but she had done so because she cared about her son and wanted to see him happy. She was hurt now to realize why she had been shut out of so much of Hiroki's life.

She found herself beginning to fume: the male Kamijou's were not the only ones in the family with a temper.

Her face burned hotter as she recalled how she had been maneuvered into suggesting that Kusama and Hiroki sleep together, at her encouraging Kusama-san to use his pet name for her son. Those clever devious boys, did they laugh at her stupidity while they lay together in the dark?

Mrs. Kamijou's own, not inconsiderable, pride reared up. She was going to confront her terrible son; shame the two of them (Kusama Nowaki too, for seeming so open, so genuine, while all the while making her look like a fool).

Her wrath fully engaged, the lady Kamijou strode out of her room and down the hall.


	18. Chapter 18: The Kiss

**Chapter : The Kiss**

Striding down the dark narrow hallway, Mrs. Kamijou's anger burned blue in its purity like a burner turned all the way up.

She was well on her way to confront the two horrible boys when suddenly she stopped short.

She could see the front room of the apartment ahead of her, lit only by a single dim lamp.

Her son was sitting with his back to her at the small dining table grading papers, a cup of tea in one hand and one of his trusted red marking pens in the other. He was still wearing that ridiculous knit cap on his head. He had pushed the long sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. His shoulders were hunched in tension, his slender neck bowed over the papers beneath him.

How often had she seen that same posture when Hiroki was a child, furiously toiling over his studies? She caught a glimpse of tender skin, visible between the low collar of his shirt and the fringe of his unruly auburn hair. Mrs. Kamijou was suddenly filled with an overpowering sense of nostalgia.

Nowaki had the television on low and was reclining on the couch. The lady could see his long feet extending over the arm of the sofa from where she stood, invisible in the darkness of the hall. She took a step back as Kusama-san's feet suddenly disappeared. She heard his soft warm voice.

"Hiro-san, you're going to wreck your eyes if you keep reading in this light. Do you want me to turn on the overhead?"

Hiroki had set down his red pen and was now using that hand to work the kinks out of his stiff neck. "No, that's okay. I'm done grading for tonight anyway. Damn that stupid Miyagi, off fornicating with his brat while I have to read through this idiocy!"

Nowaki moved across the room and soon stood next to Hiroki. "Well, maybe that will change soon?" he offered, a slight smile on his lips.

"Not likely," Hiroki snorted.

Nowaki paused a moment and then reached down and gently took the top of the knit cap in his long fingers, pulling it up and releasing a cascade of shiny locks. He dropped the hat on the table and then his hand returned to Hiro-san's head. He twined his fingers through his boyfriend's hair.

Mrs. Kamijou watched breathless, from the shadows as her son's shoulders tensed even more, and she braced herself for the impending outburst.

Nowaki kept his hand perfectly still. Despite his favor of persistent motion, occasionally the man also knew when to rest. After a minute or two he heard Hiro-san release a long exhalation and he could feel the tension leave his lover's tight frame.

The older man's mother watched in astonishment as her son's shoulders slowly dropped, and she was even further amazed to see after a few moments more, that her Hiroki actually leaned into the touch and allowed his head to rest in Kusama-san's large hand.

The two men stayed silent and unmoving in this posture for a time. Then Hiroki, like a cat that has tired of being petted, languidly leaned the other way, slipping out from under Nowaki's warm touch.

He got up, still holding his teacup and moved into the kitchen. He turned on the small light over the sink and went to work rinsing his cup, his brow furrowed even in the concentration of this simple task.

Nowaki followed Hiroki into the kitchen a moment later and stepped up behind the smaller man. He pressed his body against Hiro-san's, hooking his shaggy, dark head over his lover's shoulder. He wrapped his long arms around the other and covered the older man's hands with his own. Their fingers, locked together under the wet, warmth of the running water, created an incredibly powerful sensation.

"Are you still cold, Hiro-san?" Nowaki mumbled into his boyfriend's neck.

Since his back was to Nowaki and Hiroki knew the giant could not see his face, he permitted himself to smile. He lingered this way for a moment before leaning back into Nowaki's comforting heat. "No Giant," he said in an unusually gentle voice, "at the moment, I'm perfect."

"You're always perfect, Hiro-san," Nowaki said, nuzzling the older man's ear, "even when you're not."

The cup slipped from between their watery fingers, landing with a bright "clink" at the bottom of the sink.

Still smiling, Hiroki pulled one hand free and used his elbow to give the tall man's ribs a gentle nudge. "Dumb-ass, sometimes you make no sense at all." He said these words kindly.

Moments like these were rare with Hiro-san and Nowaki hated to break this spell, but his spirit was increasingly troubled by their deception and he knew that he would not rest that night until he had spoken.

"Hiro-san," he whispered, "you need to tell her."

The younger man expected to feel his lover stiffen at these words and lash out, but instead the exact opposite happened: Hiroki's head dropped and his body wilted.

"I can't," he choked.

"She deserves to know if she doesn't already," Nowaki pressed on.

"You don't understand Nowaki, I can't," came Hiroki's barely audible whisper.

Nowaki untangled the rest of their fingers. He placed his hands on Hiro-san's shoulders and turned the man around towards him.

Hiroki would not lift his head.

In a strained voice the older man said, "I know that she deserves to know, and that also you deserve to be known."

Hiroki hesitated; it devastated the man's pride to say the next words. "I am so ashamed."

"Ashamed, Hiro-san?" Nowaki asked perplexed.

"Oh, no," Hiroki said quickly, glancing up just long enough to catch his partner's deep blue gaze before turning away again, "Not of you, Kusama Nowaki. Of you, I am so very proud."

Hiroki felt hot tears spring into his eyes. In a voice heavy with the weight of his words he said, "You don't understand Nowaki, this isn't just me. It's my father… he knows. He's known for a long time… he saw something when I was younger and he's never forgiven me for it… he has all but disowned me.

My father has ordered me not to tell my mother. I feel like I have already failed him so much as a son. How can I fail him again?

And yet at the same time I am ashamed that I have not been stronger: going against my family. I am appalled at myself for lying about, for denying and hiding, the most precious part of my life."

His chest began to hitch as it did when he was a child, when he felt unprepared to meet and best the challenges before him, knowing simultaneously that he must inevitably do so.

Nowaki was moved by the pain he heard in his lover's voice. He suddenly realized that perhaps both the blessing and the curse of being an orphan was that no one had ever had any expectations of how he should be. Looking at Hiro-san standing in front of him, a man driven by the desire for perfection, Nowaki could not imagine how much everyone's expectations must weigh on him.

His tears falling freely now, Hiroki continued, "Nowaki, even so, I did try to tell her and she didn't understand.

I can hardly bear that I surround myself with language; that I climb mountains of prose every day and yet I stumble over phrases that have only two or three words.

Something as simple as 'I'm gay' or 'I love you' brings me to my knees."

Admitting this to Nowaki just increased Hiroki's sense of how wretchedly weak he was. He would have continued in his self abasement, but he suddenly felt Nowaki's still-damp hands gently lift his chin.

He dared to meet Nowaki's eyes and saw reflected in them no disgust or condemnation. Only love.

Nowaki covered Hiro-san's mouth tenderly with his own, cutting off any further words. He would not allow anyone to speak of his beloved in this way, even if it was the man himself.

Hiroki's eyes widened momentarily, then he responded, kissing back hard.

Beneath Nowaki's lips Hiroki felt his breath being returned to him. He closed his eyes and saw white clouds, blue sky, and green branches.

The lady Kamijou stumbled backwards towards her room. She had seen everything from her place in the darkened hallway.

While she had not been able to hear any of the words the two lovers exchanged over the low murmur of the television and the running water, she had seen her son's smile and his tears. She had witnessed the most loving of kisses offered and then returned.

She slipped back into her bedroom closing the door behind her.

Mrs. Kamijou had been married for decades and she and her husband had known passion in their early lives together. Even now, she loved the senior Kamijou dearly: he was a good man despite his flaws. But nothing she had ever exchanged with Hiroki's father equaled the tenderness of what she had just beheld.

The communion between the two men in that moment had contained an air of the sacred.

Now she understood the _beautiful way_, what her son had been trying to convey to her through his lecture that afternoon.

Her anger had left her completely.

As she sank down on the edge of her bed, Hiroki's mother considered the monumentality of the treasure her son had found and in hiding this from her, her loss. The lady Kamijou covered her mouth with her hands and she wept.


	19. Chapter 19: Poem

**Chapter Nineteen: Poem**

That night Hiroki and Nowaki lay together in their bed, curled into each other. It was a favorite posture for both men, but rare because Hiroki refused to admit how much he liked it and was reluctant to permit it more than occasionally, due to Nowaki's working most evenings at the hospital, and the fear that he could easily develop the need for a nightly fix of this addictive embrace.

The two men lay on their sides, Nowaki surrounding Hiroki, his broad chest pressed against the smaller man's tight shoulders. Nowaki had one of his long arms curled up under his head beneath his pillow. The other arm was wrapped around his lover.

Hiroki had pulled the giant's encircling arm up through his own, taking the man's large hand between his smaller ones and nesting all of these up under his chin.

Nowaki's jaw rested on the top of his Hiro-san's wild head.

"Nowaki, are you still awake?"

"Ummmm," the younger man purred.

"The Tale of Ise," Hiroki said softly.

"What?" came Nowaki's sleepy voice.

"The Tale of Ise, written in 951," Hiroki said hesitantly. Then in a rush he added, "Modern translation, page one hundred and fifteen. On that page there is a poem written by one man for another, a friend that he has been separated from."

_I cannot believe that you_

_Are far away, _

_For I can_

_Never forget you_

_And thus your face_

_Is always before me._

Hiroki recited the poem in the voice he reserved for works he particularly loved. Nowaki had only ever heard his lover speak like this a few times, when he'd attended public lectures Hiro-san was giving about his research, and the sound of it always thrilled him. When Hiroki spoke like this, all the usual fierceness and irritation left his voice, and the tone that the professor adopted contained an element of song.

Nowaki was overcome.

"Now you know," whispered Hiroki, the surliness creeping back in with the utterance of each successive syllable. "The book, the page, the poem: that's what I would read every Saturday night at Pandasan while you were away."

Hiroki could feel the smile dawning on his lover's face above him.

Nowaki propped himself up slightly and leaned over planting a soft kiss on Hiroki's forehead.

"Hiro-san," the raven-haired man murmured dreamily, "I had no idea you were such a closet romantic."

"Tell anyone dumb-ass, and I will fucking kill you," the smaller man growled, pulling his arms in and drawing Nowaki tighter against him.

"I love you too Hiro-san," Nowaki sighed, nestling back down.

Beneath him Hiroki drifted to sleep, carried on the warmth of his lover's smile.

**Note: **_**Tale of Ise**_** - real, poem - real, page number of book – made up. **


	20. Chapter 20: Goodbye

**Okay, so here are the last two chapters of "The Spatula Test." Goofy title I know, but I had no idea when I started this that it would take on such a life of its own.**

**Hope you enjoy them and please let me know what you think. Thanks to all, for the wonderful and detailed feedback. So much appreciated.**

**P.S. Dear OneWingedEggplant, **

**Thank you so much for the marriage proposal. If I'd known I could generate that kind of response, I would have started writing fanfiction a long time ago.**

**Sincerely,**

**Cereberus**

**Chapter Twenty: Good Bye**

Mrs. Kamijou arose early the next morning. She emerged from the hallway, into the main room of the apartment and was pleased to find Nowaki, already awake, sitting alone at the dining table. The young man was eating rice and natto and reading a medical journal.

The dark-haired youth looked up from his periodical and brightened when he saw her. "Good morning Kamijou-san. Can I get you a cup of tea?"

"Sit, Kusama-san," the lady said before Nowaki had the chance to fully unfold himself. "I can get it myself." She headed into the kitchen.

"Did you sleep okay?" Nowaki asked.

"Mmmm."

"And how is your headache this morning?"

"Better, much better. Thank you for asking doctor," she teased.

As she took a seat across from Nowaki at the table, with her tea, she noticed the tall man was a wearing a light blue smock. "Did the hospital call you in for another emergency this morning?"

Looking down at his uniform, Nowaki shook his head. "No, the florist shop, where I sometimes work, called early today. They have several weddings this weekend to provide for and one of the regular staff called in sick, so they asked me if I would come in and help out."

"Ah," thought Hiroki's mother, beholding the sweet giant before her. "Well, that explained the birthday flowers."

"You seem to work awfully hard Kusama-san," Mrs. Kamijou observed.

Nowaki just smiled his beautiful smile. "Oh, I don't know about that, but I don't mind working. Besides, how else would I ever get to where I need to go?"

"Mmmmm," the lady murmured thoughtfully, as she sipped her tea.

Nowaki regarded Hiroki's mother with concern. The woman seemed strangely preoccupied this morning.

The two sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"Well," said Hiroki's mother with forced brightness, breaking the quiet, "I must say, I am so glad I had the chance to see you this morning before you left for work, as I'm afraid I will not be here when you get back."

"What," exclaimed Nowaki, "You're leaving? Why?"

"Oh, well," the lady said, "the Senior Kamijou called late last night, while I was getting ready for bed and said his business had concluded early, and that he would be arriving home first-thing tomorrow. One of the reasons I was able to come visit Hiroki-kun was because his father was away and there was no one for me to take care of at home. Now that he's coming home, I need to get back."

She sighed, "Men can be so hopeless at times, Kusama-san. I'm afraid if I left the man home alone at all - he'd burn the house down the first time he tried to make his own tea."

The disappointment filling Nowaki's blue eyes was painful to see. "Well, I will be sorry to see you go Kamijou-san. I have been so enjoying getting to know you."

Hiroki's mother dropped her gaze. "Ah, Kusama-san, it has been so lovely to meet you, and to see my dear son, but truth be told, the two of you have your hands full with your own lives. You really shouldn't be spending your time entertaining an old lady. Hiroki had warned me of as much, when I first told him I'd like to visit… No, I will be happy to go home, to where I am needed."

Sensing there was something she was not telling him, Nowaki studied the lady sitting before him. He was startled when she raised her eyes, scrutinizing him just as intently.

Under the weight of her gaze, Nowaki found himself shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"Kusama-san," Hiroki's mother began, her voice quavering slightly, "before I go, is there anything that you would like to tell me about you and my son?"

Nowaki's eyes widened and then he looked away. The tall man ran one of his large hands nervously through his inky hair.

Then he looked back at Hiroki's mother, his eyes glittering in their intensity.

"Kamijou-san, I could never presume to speak for your son. He is his own person and I respect him too much for that… But I can speak for myself. Hiro-san is really the most amazing person I have ever known… He works so hard and is so passionate about what he does. He is a good man."

Mrs. Kamijou was moved by the sincerity in the young man's voice.

An uncharacteristic blush appeared on Nowaki's cheeks.

"I know that sometimes it appears like he doesn't really care about things… and sometimes he can seem a bit difficult… But he really only acts that way to hide the fact that the total opposite is true. Hiro-san cares about things deeply. So deeply sometimes, that he doesn't quite know how to conduct himself. This is one of the things that drew me to him.

I also happen to know, that one of the things he cares very much about is you."

Nowaki got up unexpectedly and moved around the table, coming to stand in front of his lover's mother. He stunned the woman by folding his long legs and kneeling down next to her. He took her slender hand in his large warm paw.

"Kamijou-san," he said, his voice almost pleading, "I am an orphan, so I have never truly known a mother's love. Even so, I cannot begin to imagine what it would feel like to lose this."

The lady Kamijou's eyes filled with tears. She slipped her hand out of Nowaki's and took the man's dear face between her palms. She kissed the youth's raven brow.

"Baka, Nowaki-kun, what nonsense you talk in the morning," she chided. "No wonder Hiroki gets so cross with you!"

Having reached an understanding, Hiroki's mother and Nowaki broke into simultaneous smiles.

"Now, get up young man and help an old lady get her bags out of your room!"

Nowaki assisted the lady Kamijou in moving her things into the front room."Is there anything more I can do to help?" Nowaki asked, looking at his watch. He needed to leave soon or he would be late for work.

"No dear, you have already helped me immeasurably. Besides," Hiroki's mother said, sounding fierce, "I am going to get my lazy son to help me. I will give him another ten minutes to rouse himself and then if he doesn't, I'm going to go in there and thrash him!"

As Nowaki went to leave, the lady stopped him one last time. "Oh, before I forget, I went ahead and stripped and remade your bed Nowaki-kun. Thank you so much for offering me your room."

"Oh, Kamijou-san, you did not have to do that."

"Hush, and let an old lady feel at least a little bit useful," Hiroki's mother said as she shooed him out the door. Before she closed it she added, "and Nowaki-kun, please call me Maemi."

After a beaming Nowaki departed, the lady prepared herself for her next conversation with her son. She knew that this matter must be handled carefully: there was Kamijou pride at stake, after all: both hers and her son's.

Despite her success with Nowaki, the lady was uneasy. She knew that if she confronted her son directly that there was bound to be lies and dramatic outbursts, neither of which would be productive.

There had to be some way that she could get her son to confide in her.

Unfortunately, she'd realized last night, too late, what Hiroki had tried to tell her through his lecture. Given the ridiculous response she'd given to this confession at the time, she knew that he would be reluctant to reveal himself again.

Her son was not a person who liked to have to repeat things (as any one of his students or his lover could whole-heartedly attest to). Mrs. Kamijou thought her son was very much like his father in this regard.

As she was considering this, Hiroki staggered out of his bedroom. His hair was going a dozen different directions. He was still in his pajama bottoms and wearing a short robe that he was holding closed high on his chest with one hand.

He was thinking to himself that he was going to have to do something soon to rein Nowaki in a bit. The big pervert had been paying so much oral attention to the older man's torso, that with all the hickeys he was now sporting, Hiroki's abdomen was starting to resemble that of a Dalmatian. Nowaki was supposed to be the puppy in the house, not him.

The auburn-haired man was startled from his morning musings by the sight of his mother seated at his dining room table surrounded by her luggage.

"Mom," Hiroki ventured, a note of apprehension in his voice, "What's going on? How come all your stuff is here?"

"Oh," Hiroki-kun," the lady began, "your father called me last night, he was going to be traveling all week, but his trip has been cut short and so now he wants me to come back home early."

On the one hand, Hiroki was furious with his father for this further indication of the man's lack of faith in him. At the same time however, if he was completely honest with himself, given the stress of the last few days, the poor professor felt he might start weeping with relief.

"Ummm, I'm so sorry that you have to cut your visit short, but I certainly understand. I know how demanding father can be. When are you leaving?"

"I've called a taxi to come and get me. It should be here in about twenty minutes to take me to the train station," his mother replied. "You needn't come with me."

"I would have been happy to accompany you to the station at least."

The lady Kamijou detected a slightly wounded tone in her son's growl.

"Oh, Hiroki-kun, I didn't want to bother you," his mother exclaimed. "I know how much work you have to do this weekend, all that grading. There's really no need. Besides, sometimes a lady needs her independence as much as her son does."

Hiroki looked at his mother quizzically, trying to interpret the meaning of this last statement.

"Well at least let me throw something on, so that I can help you get your bags down to the car." Hiroki ducked back into the bedroom. As he closed the door she could her son's cell phone begin to ring.

As the man dressed, his mother wondered what she would do if she had to leave here with the current matter unresolved. If Hiroki was resistant about sharing his truth with her, was there some way that she might eventually be able to gently force her son's hand?

He eyes darted around the room nervously as she struggled to organize her thoughts. Then, glancing into the kitchen, her gaze was caught by a glint of silver. The moment she saw this, a plan revealed itself to her. She got up, moving quickly before her son appeared, putting her plot into action, just in case.

Hiroki emerged only a few minutes later. Mrs. Kamijou immediately noticed that her son's energy has shifted drastically. Her boy seemed positively deflated.

"Is everything okay?"

"Father called while I was getting dressed. He told me to tell you, he's cancelled the taxi and is sending a car to pick you up. He knows it will take longer for you to get home that way, but he doesn't want you riding the train back." Hiroki's voice was terribly flat as he said this. He moved opposite his mother and collapsed into a chair.

"Why didn't he call and tell me that himself?" the lady asked, perplexed.

Hiroki just looked down and shook his head, not saying anything. The two sat in silence as the minutes ticked past, a vast chasm of the unspoken between them.

Then, summoning her courage, Mrs. Kamijou, asked, just as she had Nowaki, "Hiroki, before I go, I wonder if there isn't something that you might like to tell me?"

She was surprised when her son did not respond.

Instead he got up and moved into the kitchen and began rummaging around in the cupboards. "Would you like me to pack you something for the ride home?" he asked, completely glossing over her question.

A knock sounded on the door of the apartment. "That must be the car, now, "Hiroki said closing the cupboard and stepping into the other room to pick up his mother's bags.

The car had arrived too soon, the lady Kamijou thought. She needed more time.

As they moved towards the door together, Hiroki said, "Father seemed awfully glad you were coming home."

Mrs. Kamijou suddenly heard the suffering in her son's voice and saw the torment in his large hazel eyes. She realized that she would not be hearing a declaration from her son anytime soon.

As the chauffer put her bags in the trunk, Mrs. Kamijou stood outside the car, waiting in the brisk spring morning with her only son.

When she went to give him a departing hug, Hiroki surprised her by drawing her back in, after she initially released their embrace.

"I do have something I'd like to tell you," her whispered in her ear.

The lady's heart started beating wildly.

"I love you mom, and despite how I often appear, I am really not unhappy with my life. In fact there are a number of things in it right now that are actually quite wonderful. So, please don't worry about me so much. Okay?"

As his mother stepped back from Hiroki, she could see his perpetual scowl had been abandoned. His large eyes searched hers, looking for acceptance and he looked just like he had when he was a boy.

"I love you too Hiroki-kun," she said as she slid into the car. "I'll give your father your love when I see him too."

The furrow reappeared on Hiroki's brow. "Please don't," he said and softly closed the car door.

As the driver pulled away, the lady Kamijou sat in the back of the car, alone with her thoughts. It was going to be a very long trip home.


	21. Chapter 21: What Confessions Are Maid Of

**Chapter: What Confessions Are Maid Of**

It was Saturday, and though it was almost noon, all the blinds in the Kusama-Kamijou household remained uncharacteristically drawn.

Hiroki was standing at the stove cooking eggs for Nowaki.

The slender professor self-consciously put his hand to his forehead, feeling the black and white panda barrettes Nowaki had clipped into his still-damp hair, after their bath together, to hold back his bangs.

The pandas, Nowaki had assured him repeatedly, were the perfect complement to the skimpy French maid's outfit he was wearing.

Nowaki emerged from the bathroom only moments later looking clean and particularly bright. He was clad in only a towel, wrapped loosely around his trim waist. Hiroki, recognizing the look in the younger man's face, could tell that Nowaki did not expect to be wearing even this minimal attire for very long.

Hiroki blushed a lovely shade of pink and diverted his eyes back down to the eggs.

Nowaki was beaming with pleasure. He watched Hiro-san concentrating, as he labored over their breakfast. He was pleased to observe his lover's brow seemed relatively free from furrow this morning. Perhaps it was the panda barrettes? Regardless, the man looked crazy-adorable.

It had taken Nowaki three weeks since Hiroki's mother's visit and a fair amount of alcohol last night, to get Hiro-san to finally capitulate to his promise.

Looking at his boyfriend now, standing barefoot in their kitchen, his hair pulled back from his lovely face, making his large eyes deliciously visible; his lithe body filling out the crisp black and white satin frills of the maid's costume; Nowaki's heart was filled with happiness. (This was not the only place on the youth's tall body that was filled by this vision, however.)

Nowaki entered the kitchen and glided up behind Hiro-san.

He could see just the slightest curve of his lover's bare bottom peeking out from under the hem of the tied apron.

He could feel Hiro-san's whole body flush as Nowaki stooped and began sliding his hands over the older man's smooth legs. Nowaki had shaved them (along with a few other bits) when they were in the bath together this morning, despite Hiro-san's protests.

"Hiro-san," Nowaki had chided, "a promise is a promise, and you said I could do anything."

"Well then, just get it over with, dumb-ass!" Hiroki had finally barked in concession. "And you better not fucking nick me."

Nowaki had been very careful, employing a surgeon's precision. He could tell however, that once he got started the other man really didn't mind it that much.

Now, Nowaki's moved his skilled hands up his boyfriend's thighs and under the short, ruffled, black skirt delighting in feeling nothing but Hiro-san's tight ass underneath, as he slid his palms higher.

Then one of his hands slipped around to the front. The other, he slid from beneath the skirt, lifting it up, and placing it between the frilly top of the apron and his lover's flushed flesh. The dark-haired man palmed Hiro-san's finely muscled chest with his large, warm hand and pulled his lover back into him.

"Idiot" Hiroki mumbled, submitting to the other's ministrations, "do you want breakfast or not?"

Nowaki leaned his dark head over Hiroki's shoulder and whispered into his ear, before taking it gently between his teeth. "Well, I think there might be something else I'm hungrier for at the moment." He underscored his statement with his lower hand, giving Hiroki's cock a light squeeze.

"Pervert," Hiroki grumbled. He was trying his hardest to behave and not push away Nowaki's exquisite attentions. In fact, though he would never-ever admit it, it was kind of a relief to be freed from the burden of resistance today.

As Nowaki pushed closer against the smaller man, Hiroki could feel the youth's tented towel pressing between the cheeks of his bare backside. If he allowed himself, it felt rather lovely: the other man's desire simultaneously comforting and terribly arousing.

Just then Nowaki's cell phone, sitting out on the dining table, where the man had left it the previous night after they'd stumbled home, began ringing.

Hiroki, leaned back into Nowaki, "just ignore it," he advised.

Nowaki groaned and pulled away. "I can't Hiro-san, it might be the hospital. What if there's an emergency?"

Hiroki caught himself almost pouting, as the warmth of his boyfriend's hands left his enflamed flesh.

Hiroki was shocked by this response. He might sulk occasionally, but he made it a point to never pout. Embarrassed he sucked in his bottom lip, biting it lightly to keep it from jutting back out. He tentatively put his hand back up to his forehead. He wondered if this disconcerting development was a result of the influence of the panda barrettes?

"Oh," said Nowaki happily, looking at the number and sitting down in one of their dining-room chairs. "It's your mother."

"My mother!" Hiroki exclaimed, immediately drawing his hands up in an unconscious posture of modesty. Then his arms fell back down to his sides, his long-fingered hands clenching. "Wait a minute, why in the hell is she calling you?"

"Oh, she does that sometimes now," Nowaki answered cheerfully.

At this new revelation, Hiroki's brow furrowed for the first time that day. "Well, don't answer it, moron!" Hiroki started to shout, but it was too late.

"Ah, hello Mae… Kamijou-san," Nowaki chirped, blatantly disregarding his boyfriend's distress.

"Yes, everything is just fine here…The weather is lovely… Things at the hospital are going well... No, I have the whole day off today… I am not even working anywhere else… Ah, yes, thank you… I got that recipe that you e-mailed me yesterday… Ummmhmmm… I'm going to try it out tomorrow."

"Your son?... Yes, he's here…just a minute."

Nowaki motioned for Hiroki to come and take the phone.

Hiroki sighed. Ever since her visit, his mother had been increasingly attentive, sometimes calling him now two or three times a week. Honestly, she was getting almost as annoying his boyfriend.

The auburn-haired maid turned the burner down and came to stand next to Nowaki. As Hiroki reached for the phone, the giant grabbed him and pulled him down onto his lap; beneath him the youth began to resume his previous explorations of his lover's body.

Hiroki tried to push the other man's hands away as he took the phone. He ceased his struggles, however, when Nowaki gave him a reproving look and removed one hand long enough to shake a scolding finger at him. "You promised," he mouthed.

Hiroki sighed again and tried to settle into the tall man's lap, however Nowaki's jutting member made this a bit more complicated than normal.

"Mother, I really can't talk very long right now… I'm trying to fix breakfast."

"So late, Hiroki-kun? It's almost noon," The lady Kamijou said, her tone laced with disapproval.

"Ummm, well, Nowaki and I went out drinking last night, after he got done at the hospital, and we got home a bit late."

"Oh, the wayward lives of bachelors. Neh, Hiroki-kun?" his mother exclaimed. She had become seemingly much more accepting of her son's "single" lifestyle since her visit. "Well, I just hope you don't make a habit of such behavior. You know Mariko-san's son…"

Hiroki knew that he needed to get his mother to the point of her call and off the phone, before she launched into one of her rambling stories.

Nowaki was trailing light kisses across Hiroki's bare shoulders. His hands had found and were now teasing his older lover's very sensitive nipples.

"Yes, yes, of course mom, but what did you call for?" a squirming Hiroki asked, trying not to sound peevish. Despite his discomfort, he could not help but add, "And why are you calling on Nowaki's phone?"

"Oh, well, I tried calling yours but it was turned off," the lady Kamijou explained.

Hiroki suddenly remembered that he had turned his phone off last night, after receiving his third drunken call from Miyagi, who was lost in lamenting his most recent spat with his brat.

"Besides, I enjoy talking with Nowak…Kusama-san from time to time. He certainly provides me with a much fuller account of what's going on in my son's life than I can ever pry out of you. Anyway, I'm calling because I came across this book while I was out the other day, and I thought I remembered you mentioning to Akihiko that you were looking for it, while I was there visiting."

Hiroki inhaled deeply, trying to keep his breathing even. For the first time in his life perhaps, the professor did not have the least bit of interest in a book.

One of Nowaki's hands slipped down and took hold of the stiffness under Hiroki's increasingly disheveled skirt. "I think I found your feather duster, Miss," the dark-haired man purred into the ear of his lover that was not occupied by the phone.

"What was that?" Hiroki's mother asked "Do you have someone there cleaning for you?"

"Ummm," focus was increasingly hard for Hiroki at the moment (and that was not the only thing), "Nowaki has been interviewing housekeepers, and one left something behind I think."

"Oh, well I am pleased to hear that. With both your and Kusama-san's schedules, that seems very reasonable. It will give you more time for other things. Make sure the girl is honest though…"

As Hiroki took his next deep breath, he smelled something burning. He suddenly remembered their breakfast. "The eggs!" he groaned, cutting off his mother's description of the difficulty of finding trustworthy help.

"I'll get them," Nowaki offered, and both cruelly and blessedly for Hiroki, the man slid out from under him and headed toward the stove. Hiroki was shocked to find, however, that he was still sitting on the younger man's towel: the giant now standing completely naked in their kitchen with an idiotic smile on his face.

"Be careful you don't burn anything important," Hiroki warned.

Nowaki just flashed his lover a (literally) cheeky grin.

"Now about this book…" the lady Kamijou forged on undeterred by the seeming chaos of her son's household.

"Hiro-san," Nowaki interrupted as he went to scrape the scorched eggs into the trash. "Are you sure that you still haven't seen my favorite spatula around? I can't seem to find it anywhere. I have no idea where could have gotten to and it's been missing for ages now."

Mrs. Kamijou had never mentioned her revelations to Hiroki's father. Determined to draw her son out, regardless of the Senior Kamijou's sentiments, she had spoken with Hiroki numerous times since her visit. Each time, the weight of what remained unspoken between them had burdened her, and yet despite every opening she gave him, her son still declined to reveal himself.

Fearing just such a scenario, before she had left Hiroki, his mother had instigated, what had seemed at the time, a clever plan. But as the weeks had unfurled, she had begun to despair that her scheme had failed her.

However, now overhearing Nowaki's inquiry in the background, Mrs. Kamijou silently blessed the gods for this opening. She immediately jumped in. "Oh, Hiroki-kun," she said slyly, "I think I might know what happened to Kusama-san's spatula."

"Really?"

"Ah yes, it seems I put it away while I was visiting you. But I am very surprised that Kusama-san has not found it."

"That's great," Hiroki breathed, he got up a little stiffly and headed in towards the kitchen. "If you just tell me where you put it, I'll be sure to look there right now."

"I put it…" the lady hesitated.

"I put it in Kusama-san's bed… I can't believe that after three weeks he didn't find it…unless of course he's sleeping somewhere else…"

Given Hiroki's luck, Mrs. Kamijou's timing could not have been more perfect. Her son heard these words uttered by his mother, as he stood in his front room in his maid's costume, his skirt still tenting awkwardly up in the front, while he stared at the questioning expression on the sly puppy face of his naked lover in the kitchen.

Hiroki felt the world stop and his face discover a new and remarkable shade of red.

"Hiro-san," his mother said to Hiroki, using Kusama-san's name for him for the first and only time. She asked kindly, "are you sure there isn't something that you might like to tell me?"

**The End**

**My deep and heartfelt thanks to all of you who read and commented on this piece, I only hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have loved getting your feedback and suggestions along the way. While my next venture in the unexpurgated version of what happened in the men's room at Pandasan (lemon). I would greatly appreciate to hear from anyone who has a suggestion for what and who I might write next.**

**I have had a few of you inquire about a possible further exploration of Hiroki and his father's relationship and maybe an explanation of what exactly the senior Kamijou did see. If this possibility interests you, please let me know.**

**Also, if you would like to read about the rest of Hiroki and Nowaki's lemony play date, please read my story "The Spatula Test: Another Misplaced Citrus" rated "M."  
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**Until the next creative frenzy begins, **

**Cheers!**

**Cerberus **


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